Ritmo Andaluz
by Daurmith
Summary: COMPLETED -- A trip to Sevilla to buy horses for Shillingworth Magna turns into something else because of Rebecca's job
1. In which horses are discussed

RITMO ANDALUZ  
  
A SAJV divertimento (not yet a fanfic)  
  
  
Chapter One  
  
In which horses are discussed  
  
  
  
  
The watery afternoon sun was disappearing fast under a cover of gray clouds, and the birds had hushed up, feeling that there was rain to come. Spring or no spring, better find a way out of the rain, they seemed to realize, and dived for shelter in the lovely English countryside. All in all, it was a peaceful moment, and one could almost picture the sweet tears of Mother Nature raining softly on the dark, rich soil, there to nurture and give life to plants and trees in the deep silence of-  
  
"Don't give her her head, dammit, rein her in!"  
  
In the almost total silence of the-  
  
"I'm not giving her anything, and besides, she already has a head!"  
  
In the relative peace of the afternoon, barely disturbed by-  
  
"And draw your elbows in. In, Verne, in, this is not the Far West, if I may remind you, don't flap your arms about like that!"  
  
Oh, dash it all.  
  
"Just keep calm, Jules, hold on with your knees," said a sweet feminine voice, raising over the two angry male voices.  
  
"Come on, Verne. Do not use the heels, toes up, kidneys in, and sit straight!" the first voice said, rather harshly, though a keen listener might have noticed the edge of amusement in it. Some birds were craning their necks to see what all the noise was about.  
  
"Heels, knees, sit," mumbled a deep, young voice, "There are just too many damn things to think about here..."  
  
"Now, now, language, Jules, language."  
  
"You fine ladylike delicacy is being offended, Rebecca?", said the first voice, sardonically.  
  
"Oh, shut up, Phileas," said the feminine voice, rather less sweetly now.  
  
A merry clip clop of hooves could be heard from behind a curve in the country road. The owners of the voices seemed to be the riders, and a patch of sunlight was kind enough to fall on them as they turned the curve and approached the stately English manor that was waiting for them at the foot of a smooth slope.  
  
The first one was, undoubtably, a gentleman. He was correctly dressed in riding costume, with a top hat worn at a dashing angle, immaculate white breeches and an extremely handsome tweed jacket that fell most naturally from straight, wide shoulders. He was riding a tall chestnut gelding with all the easy elegance of a centaur, an elegance somewhat diminished by the fact that he was half turning in the saddle to direct some remark to one of his companions.   
  
On the other side of the road, a lady was riding, also with consummate skill, a handsome bay that tried to canter sideways and was checked firmly by her gloved hands. She was also in riding costume, wearing breeches and a maroon jacket. Her demeanor was at the same time graceful and proud, with a hint of mischief. She took her beautiful mount a step closer to the third member of the group.  
  
He was a young man in his early twenties, dressed in an ill-fitting red jacket and oversized boots. He was currently trying very hard not to slide off to the ground, clinging desperately to the reins with one hand and to the saddle with the other. His mount, a small but very spirited grey mare, was trotting and jumping with the obvious intent of getting rid of the burden on her back.  
  
"For God's sake, Verne, sit up!" the gentleman said, making a neat half turn and taking the mare's bridle in one gloved hand, while restraining deftly his own horse's attempts to bolt. The youth straightened more or less on the saddle and tried to recover his breath and what was left of his dignity.  
  
"She started it," he murmured sulkily, grasping the reins as a lifeline.  
  
"Yes, and you finished it," was the sarcastic answer. "I told you not to give her her head."  
  
"I don't understand what you are saying half the time, Fogg, so, don't bother telling me these things," the young man said. The lady chuckled.  
  
"Oh, Phileas, do be reasonable, he did very well most of the time, and you have to admit that Boadicea is not the most amiable of mounts."  
  
"She is a mean-spirited, half-crazed, bone-jarring excuse of a mare," Fogg conceded, "but she is also the mildest of the horses we have now at the stables". As if to prove this point, his horse jumped and tried to bolt again, and only the swift pressure of knee and hand restrained him. Fogg gave the horse a couple of paces ahead and reined him in firmly again.   
  
"See what I mean, Rebecca?" he said, plaintively. "You have to spend half the time teaching the damned beasts how to keep to the road and the other half fighting them."  
  
"You have a point there, yes," the woman said, patting the neck of her horse and barely avoiding a bite. "The stables of Shillingworth are far from their old standards of excellency."  
  
"You can hardly blame me for that," was the answer. "Father never bothered himself much with horses."  
  
"Well, you don't seem to do much about it either, Phileas," she retorted dryly. "Dover here," she said, patting her horse again, "is not all that bad, but he doesn't have much stamina and is a coward to boot. He startled Boadicea in the first place, when he saw that cat."  
  
"Verne startled Boadicea from the start, the way he rides," Fogg said, watching the mare chomp the bit and roll her eyes. "Tighten up, Verne, let her feel your seat."  
  
"Easy for you to say," Verne muttered, as the mare suddenly put down her head to explore some interesting flowers by the road and almost wrenched the young man's arms from the shoulders. "I think she's hungry."  
  
"She's tired and she knows that she can do whatever she wants with her rider," Fogg said, putting his own Palomides to a trot. "Come on, let us all go back to Shillingworth and have some dinner. It's going to rain soon."  
  
"Things just keep getting better and better," Verne murmured under his breath, tugging at the reins and feeling every bone in his body being jarred by the mare's jumpy, uncomfortable trot.  
  
  
  
  
  
The horses were still the matter of discussion that evening as they all gathered around a delicious dinner put together by Passepartout. After dinner they all went to the study. Verne sat on an armchair, looking grumpy, while Fogg waved about some pieces of paper.  
  
"Pedigrees, genealogies," he was saying, miffed. "They're not worth a jot. I don't care if you can trace their ancestors to Canut's days, all the horses in this house would make a better job as plow horses than anything else."  
  
"Is it really that bad?" his wife enquired mildly, peering at some of the papers. "God, this looks like the Royal House's genealogy."  
  
"Father knew all about genealogy and not a bit about horses," Fogg said. "I've been waiting to do something about it for years, but what with one thing and another..."  
  
"You've been postponing it because our horses keep uninvited guests away. Nobody has shown up for a decent hunting in years."  
  
"With our neighbours, my dear, you must agree that it is more a blessing than anything else."  
  
"Are you saying that we have the lousiest horses in this part of England so that you are not forced to invite dear Mrs. Finchberry-Smythe to a riding party?" his wife asked, opening her eyes wide in mock surprise. Fogg's eyes narrowed at her.  
  
"Dear Mrs. Finchberry-Smythe would bore you to tears in a heartbeat, Rebecca. Or, as you so aptly put it once, she is the reason why this country should forbid tea parties. And let us not wander from the point. Which was horses."  
  
Rebecca put a thoughtful finger to her cheek.  
  
"Having the advantage of Mrs. Finchberry-Smythe's acquaintance, I protest that we have not wandered from the point at all."  
  
Fogg laughed, and even Verne let out a small chuckle that hurt his sore ribs. This brought Rebecca's attention to him.  
  
"You've been awfully quiet, Jules," she said. "Are you well?"  
  
"Yes, Rebecca, thank you. The ride left me a bit tired, that's all."  
  
"Yes, I must admit I'm a bit stiff myself," she said, arching her long neck. "I shall retire early today, Phileas. Remember, I have to be in London tomorrow and I want to make an early start."  
  
"Ah, yes. Your meeting with Chatsworth," he said, not looking up from the sheets of paper. "What is it about?"  
  
"A real mission, I hope", she said, looking like she was ready to chomp the bit like Boadicea herself. "My last three assignments were little more than errands, and boring ones at that."  
  
Fogg looked at her briefly. It was one of the few sore points that hung unresolved in their relationship. However, he decided not to press the point at the moment. Verne was his friend, and Passepartout was practically family, but Fogg was not inclined to address marital issues in their presence.  
  
"You can hardly expect the man to stage an international crisis for you to solve and escape the boredom of country life," he said mildly.  
  
"No, but I would expect the man to go on treating me like an agent and not like something that has to be put in the mantelpiece and looked at from a distance. Everytime I walk into his office I feel like I'm about to be dusted a bit, for appearances, and put back on the shelf."  
  
"I have no doubt that Chatsworth would come to his senses soon enough, if only to stop you from escaping and single-handedly defeating an army of anarchists to prove that marriage has not blunted your edge, my dear."  
  
Rebecca shot him a quick glance and Fogg cursed silently. Perhaps a little bitterness had crept into his voice. He smiled at her and she relaxed.  
  
"We'll see tomorrow," she said pleasantly, and rose up to give him a chaste kiss on one cheek. "Good night, Phileas. Don't worry much about the horses; they are, after all, a good training."  
  
"If one wants to train one's patience and pain endurance."  
  
"Hear hear," Verne muttered, still lost in his brown study. Rebecca smiled at him and the young writer felt his face relax and respond to the smile. It was impossible not to.  
  
"Poor Jules," she said, "You came here to rest and here we are, inflicting our horses on you. I am sure you had a more comfortable time chasing Quantrill's men across America.  
  
"I won't deny it," Verne said, "except for the part when we got shot at."  
  
"Give us time to organize a proper English hunting party with all our myopic neighbours and you will change your mind about that too," she replied, chuckling, and disappeared upstairs, followed by Fogg's and Verne's glance. After a moment or two, Fogg exhaled and turned back to his pedigrees, while Verne pondered whether his decision to visit the Foggs at Shillingworth was more likely to cause him pain than pleasure.  
  
  
End of Chapter One  
  
Adela / Daurmith  



	2. In which a trip is decided

Chapter Two  
  
In which a trip is decided as a result of hydraulics and other powerful reasons  
  
  
  
The morning found Jules Verne sore and dispirited. The light that filtered through the curtains of his bedroom was grey and dull, and the birds were complaining about it in loud, shrill voices that made the Frenchman wonder why poets were so eager to write about the little brutes. He decided that he would write about them only as food or as fearsome predators, thus making up for centuries of mistaken depictions of ornithological fauna. The thought gave him enough righteous strength to get up and go downstairs in search of breakfast.  
  
It was very early, but he was not surprised to find Fogg already up, dressed in a blue suit that made up for the lack of color in the morning sky, and reading the paper with all the cold deliberation of a surgeon performing an autopsy. Despite Fogg's frugal, even spartan, habits at breakfast -he had a piece of dry toast and a cup of coffee, normally-, Passepartout insisted on loading the sideboard with all the extravagant delicacies that the English cuisine could provide, and so Verne was treated to silver plates full of kedgeree, kippered herrings, deviled eggs, blood sausage, curried fish and other unidentifiable substances vaguely resembling vegetables. Eventually, he settled for a boiled egg and toast with rhubarb marmalade, and drank two cups of Passepartout's excellent coffee before daring to add a kippered herring to the plate. He carried his victuals to the table.  
  
"Good morning, Fogg."  
  
Fogg glanced at the soft veil of rain that was slowly but determinedly soaking the countryside down to the bedrock, and scowled.  
  
"Good morning indeed," he said. "Did you sleep well, Verne?" he added then, kindly.  
  
His duty as guest prevented Verne from saying "not really", so he smiled and moved his head vaguely in what he hoped was an ambiguous enough gesture, which of course didn't fool Fogg for a second. At that moment Passepartout appeared from the kitchen, carrying a covered dish that turned out to be kidney pie.  
  
"Good morning, Jules!" the valet chirped, "Are you having the good breakfast? Lots of food?"  
  
"Yes, thank you, Passepartout," Verne said, hiding his plate from Passepartout's sight and trying to change the subject, "Has Rebecca left already?"  
  
"She left very early this morning," Fogg said, turning a page, inscrutable as a sphinx.  
  
"Veeeery early," Passepartout confirmed, "She went ahead of the sun."  
  
"What sun?" said Verne, secretly glad that there was going to be no horse riding today. Passepartout looked out the window and smiled.  
  
"Yes. I am thinking of this idea, Jules, maybe now it works. Remember what one? The one with the stones?"  
  
"Oh... Your design for the decorative fountain?"  
  
"That is it, yes. With the rain, it can be working better, because the wood will be inflammating and will move the stones like this..."  
  
Verne had already opened his sketchbook to consult some diagram that he had made earlier during his visit; Passepartout snatched a piece of blood sausage and chewed it absently while refreshing his memory with the drawing, and gesticulated widely over it with the sausage.  
  
"If you two are thinking of tinkering about with one of your infernal inventions," Fogg interjected, quite pleasantly, "kindly inform the staff this time. Cook is still suffering from nervous tremors since you inflicted your last contraption on her, Passepartout."  
  
"It was a very efficacious potato peeler, master," said the valet, a shade defensively.  
  
"I am sure it was. But, if you recall, it did not exactly peel a potato. It went and peeled the bust of Great-Uncle Eustace Fogg, and although I won't say it wasn't an improvement on the gentleman's beauty, I cannot have my ancestors being defaced in sight of the servants. It's very bad for morale."  
  
Without looking up from his paper, Fogg had waved a languid hand towards a rather lumpy piece of wood that had the appearance of the early efforts of a blind octopus in the noble art of sculpture. An ear and two curls of a powdered wig had escaped the carnage, but the rest was a series of more or less parallel ridges that had revealed the woodworm-eaten core of oak under the outer layer of varnish and repelling features that the bust had hitherto offered to the horrified admiration of the world. Verne had to hide his smile behind a hand.   
  
"Don't worry, Fogg," he said, "we'll be in the workshop."  
  
"I'm not worried. To tell you the truth, I'm actually looking forward to seeing what kind of mayhem will you two inflict on the house today." Fogg replied, surprising both men. Passepartout's wide smile blossomed like the sun, so conspicuously absent from the window.  
  
"I am thinking, master, that whatever you say to miss Rebecca, you are also bored and want to go on the Aurora, outside from here."  
  
Fogg looked up from the paper, and stared ahead for a second, utterly inexpressive. Passepartout tensed, and relaxed again when Fogg let out a sigh.  
  
"Perhaps you're right," he muttered. "This blasted weather always gets to me."  
  
"We could be leaving when miss Rebecca comes back, master. The Aurora just need balloonairting and loading with good foods."  
  
"Let us not rush things, Passepartout," Fogg cautioned, sighing again, and hid behind the newspaper to think.  
  
If that dim-witted Chatsworth was bent on infuriating his wife by not giving her a real mission this time either, he could bribe Rebecca with a nice trip to take her mind off things. France, perhaps: Montecarlo. Or Naples. Somewhere sunny. If, on the other hand, Chatsworth would have a stroke of genius and assign Rebecca to a mission worthy of her, the matter would be a very different one. Fogg hoped, very much, that he could go along on this mission. But he also feared that doing so would hurt Rebecca. She needed the distance, sometimes. He could not give her less than everything, even if that meant stepping back and watching her risk her life over and over again. It did not get easier with time or practice, however.  
  
Passepartout saw Fogg's face adopt that faraway, slightly chilling look that he got when he was contemplating some unhappy thought, and cleared his throat while cleaning the table.  
  
"Nevertheless the Aurora is needing a good cleaning up and down. I will do it today, just in case," he offered, as casually as he could. He was rewarded by Fogg's swift, sweet smile.  
  
"Yes, good idea. Thank you, Passepartout," he said. Then he rose abruptly.  
  
"I need to see the vicar about the Easter services," he said. "If you will excuse me." He went out, leaving Verne slightly puzzled.  
  
"Is something wrong, Passepartout?" he asked, noticing the worried expression of the valet.  
  
"Wrong? No, not wrong. Only very confused," he replied. "This married thing, gets being complicated more than the cousin thing."  
  
Verne didn't reply. His own feelings about the situation were far from clear and he was wise enough to let them settle down and resolve into a definite mood before loading Passepartout with confidences that would probably be a burden for the valet. Mostly, he was happy for his friends. A tiny little bit of himself, however, the tiny little bit that had kept hope, even knowing that it had always been hopeless, could be heard in his mind, late at night, and the sound sometimes would resemble a roar and sometimes a moan.  
  
Or maybe it was just that damned English weather, that made everything look overboiled and musty. Not wanting to indulge in a bout of self-pity, he turned his full attention to Passepartout's latest design.  
  
  
  
The day went on, and the rain went also on, at random intervals that managed to start the moment anyone dared to go outside to get some fresh air. Fogg had spent a very busy morning talking to the vicar and arranging for the roofing of part of the church. He also visited the stables and took inventory of the state of the building and the inhabitants. Said inhabitants included, apart from the horses, a stable boy singularly obtuse named Chester, a decrepit groom that had long ago forgotten his own name and was called Old Muck by everyone, thirteen furtive and extremely ill-mannered cats of all hues and sizes, and the most disreputable collection of riding accessories in the whole kingdom. Fogg's spirits returned at the sight of the creased and rotting heaps of saddles, bridles, reins, rusted stirrups and mismatched apparels that had been thrown carelessly into a huge wooden chest, and had probably been there since the Saxon invasion1. Unfortunately for Chester and Old Muck, the spirits that returned to Fogg were the spirits of nine generations of lords of the land, and battling lords at that. By midafternoon, the stables had been stripped almost to the bare walls and a thorough cleaning up and rearranging was taking place, to the disgust of the cats and the extreme annoyance of the horses.   
  
The activity in the stables had been so intense, in fact, that the explosions that came from time to time from the direction of Passepartout's workshop went by without so much as a comment from the rest of the service. The flooding of half the ground floor of the manor, however, did attract some attention, especially since McIver slipped and fell on his backside, causing an inordinate amount of mirth among the staff that earned most of the maids a double load of work and made Fogg blink in surprise when he was served a late, hurried tea by a dripping butler that trembled slightly with suppressed rage. He imbibed the tepid, revolting stuff without a comment, and sat down with the evening editions and a certain amount of trepidation while he waited for Passepartout to come back from the Land of Mechanics and give him his report about what had put McIver in such a damp state.  
  
  
  
  
  
Passepartout and Verne reappeared, soaked from the waist down and slightly charred from the waist up, discussing structural integrity issues in loud, shell-shocked voices, with a lot of arm waving that spread fine clouds of soot over the Turkish carpets of the study. The unfortunate bust of Great-Uncle Eustace Fogg narrowly escaped being hit by a piece of lead pipe that Verne was using to emphasize some scientific point or other, and Fogg watched in fascination as Passepartout, ducking the attacks, managed to convey three different things at once in body language while saying a fourth one in rapid French. At this point, Verne lost his grasp both of the discussion and the lead pipe, that shot through the air with murderous speed directly towards Fogg, who had hidden again behind the paper.   
  
There was a second of horrified realization of the danger, and Passepartout gasped and jumped, but before he could even put both feet in the air, Fogg moved slightly to the right, his arm shot to the left, and the lead pipe was stopped dead by his hand a mere inch from his head.   
  
Passepartout fell flat on his face.  
  
Silence fell flat on the study.   
  
Moving with careful deliberation, Fogg put the lead pipe on the table. It went clunk, which was not, perhaps, the best sound for the Trumpets of Doom, but felt that way to both Frenchmen.  
  
"I say, Verne," the gentleman remarked, in tones as smooth and sharp as Damasc steel, "I understand that you may still hold a grudge from the rather unpleasant way I treated you when we met, but I was expecting that you would at least give me another piece of lead to defend myself."  
  
"Fogg, I'm so sorry, it was an ac-,"  
  
"Or maybe," Fogg said, cold as ice, soft as quicksand, "we should settle matters once and for all. I trust you can find a gentleman to act as second. What shall it be, sir?"  
  
Faced with the full force of a (patented) Fogg glare, Passepartout and Verne stood as blinded rabbits, not daring to breathe, trying to swallow. Verne hoped that the small, the very small glint, that animated Fogg's large eyes, was mirth and not murderous rage.  
  
"Fogg..."  
  
"No, you are right, the choice of weapons is mine. Well then, in that case - shall it be, let us say, potato peelers at dawn? Passepartout can count the number of defaced ancestors that we leave on our wake."  
  
"Master!" Passepartout wailed, when the words reached Verne's frozen brain and both of them recovered speech and movement, sagging with relief, "Not doing that! You almost give Passepartout the offensive heart!"  
  
"It would serve you well," Fogg muttered, snapping the paper straight. "Not only have you ruined my paper, my tea, half of the ground floor and my butler, but you are also covering everything with soot. And I would wager that we are not going to have that ornamental fountain that you promised, after all."  
  
"Well, the hydraulics -," Verne began, still digesting the fact that Fogg had, almost certainly, been joking about the duel. Potato peelers had a pitifully short range, after all.  
  
"Leave it, Verne," Fogg said, wearily, "It's been a long day. Passepartout, would you please bring a less revolting pot of tea? We will hold dinner until Rebecca arrives."  
  
"Yes, master," Passepartout said, happy to escape with his life.  
  
"Oh, and on your way, do apologize to McIver. He has had a bad time today with your attempts to emulate Noah."  
  
"Yes, master," the valet said, much less happily, and disappeared. Verne coughed softly.  
  
"I'm really sorry about that, Fogg, I just..."  
  
"Don't worry about it, Verne. It's good training, of sorts. Next time try to do it to Rebecca."  
  
"You seem to be remarkably... understanding today," Verne said cautiously. It was not, indeed, Fogg's usual reaction towards their creative activities. Whether this had anything to do with his recent marriage was unlikely; on the other hand, Fogg was anything but predictable and Verne was not going to complain about this new easy-going persona.   
  
He disappeared briefly to make himself more presentable and went back to the study to find an aromatic pot of Darjeeling steaming on the table, Passepartout in his best valet manners, and Fogg absorbed in the reading of a fresh-ironed late edition of The Times. He sat gratefully to write down some ideas for a play that he got while struggling with Passepartout's designs, and almost forgot about the slate-colored rainy evening outside.  
  
After a while, he happened to be looking in Fogg's direction and noticed something curious: his friend's posture relaxed perceptibly, the small tense lines around his eyes disappeared, the shadow of a smile crossed his lips and he seemed to sit more lightly in his armchair. A second later some noise in the main hall preceded the appearance of Rebecca.  
  
They rose to greet her; she made a bee-line to Fogg and they exchanged a swift, marital kiss punctuated by a soft "Ah" from Fogg that sounded like a starved man getting a morsel of ambrosia. Rebecca purred under her breath and then turned to greet Verne and smile warmly at Passepartout.  
  
"So, how was your meeting?" Fogg asked, resuming his seat and taking his paper again.  
  
"Productive, actually," she said. "Excuse me for a moment while I change. Passepartout, is there some more tea?"  
  
"Very plenty, miss Rebecca, it will be waiting when you come back."  
  
"Wonderful. Shan't be a moment."  
  
She disappeared again with a swish of hoop skirts.  
  
"Passepartout, I believe you can tell Cook that we will have dinner in fifteen minutes."  
  
"Yes, master."  
  
Verne was putting the finishing touches in a sketch of a water-hauling mechanism when Rebecca reappeared.  
  
"So, Phileas," she said briskly, as if resuming a conversation that had been interrupted just a moment ago, "what do you think of Spain?"  
  
He didn't even look up from the paper.  
  
"Very hot, very dry, lousy whist players, beautiful landscapes, wonderful people if you don't cross them."   
  
Rebecca smiled.  
  
"Do they have good horses?"  
  
"The best in the world, to my mind." Rebecca sat down primly with cup and saucer in hand and met Fogg's slow, calculating gaze. "Why do you ask?"  
  
"Because, as it happens, I need to go to Seville on an assignment, and I was wondering if you would be interested in coming with me and at the same time solve our equestrian problem."  
  
At the mention of Seville - the Cathedral, the Arab ruins, the ancient knowledge of old Al-Andalus - Verne looked up eagerly, and saw Passepartout's wide, wide grin of delight and Fogg's expression of wary interest.  
  
"Seville, eh?"  
  
"The Aurora would be an ideal means of transportation," she said. "I don't mind telling you that this is a matter of some urgency. And didn't you tell me once that you had a friend down there?"  
  
"Don Fernando Villares," Fogg said, nodding.  
  
"Can he help you with horses and such? I seem to recall that he knows something about the matter, but I may be mistaken."  
  
"As a matter of fact, he breeds some of the finer horses of the region."  
  
"There! Some piece of luck, I'd say. So, do you agree? How soon can we leave?"  
  
"My, you _are_ in a hurry. Is it a matter of national security?"  
  
"Not really, but I'd rather get there sooner than later. Of course, I don't intend to leave Shillingworth if there's anything important that needs to be done..."  
  
"Well, after today, I can safely say that the best thing to do for our ancestral home is to get Verne and Passepartout away from it as soon as we can," Fogg said, with a look that made Verne blush and Passepartout shuffle his feet. Rebecca raised an eyebrow and took in the guilty appearance of both his friends, the stern look of Fogg, with an underlying current of dry amusement, and the unusual signs she had picked up earlier from the staff, especially McIver.  
  
"Oh dear," she said, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Really. Well, in that case, it's our clear duty to do what's best for the Manor, of course."  
  
"Indeed," Fogg said, rising and offering her his arm. "Shall we discuss the details over dinner?"  
  
"By all means," she replied, and the four of them walked in style to the dining hall.  
  
  
  
  
  
End of Chapter Two  
  
  
  
Daurmith / Adela  
  
  
1 Yes, I know that at the time of the Saxons stirrups were not common use. Fogg knows it too. Poetic license.  
  
  



	3. In which a long trip is used to explain ...

Chapter Three  
  
/In which a long trip is used to explain a number of useful things, and a minor misunderstanding is almost settled/  
  
  
  
  
They could not, of course, leave immediately. A telegram was sent to Don Fernando Villares, and the Aurora, albeit already 'ballonairted', had to be loaded with food and other necessities. Passepartout's most dangerous machinery had to be locked up, and Old Muck had to be anointed with a good quantity of ale to convince him of finishing the work at the stables. All in all, when a telegram from Villares arrived, stating that he would be delighted to receive and accommodate Fogg and his companions in his cortijo for as long as they would wish, a whole day had passed. It was midafternoon when the Aurora rose majestically from Shillingworth Magna's grounds, among the goodbyes and waves of the service. Fogg thought that the goodbyes were a trifle too enthusiastic this time, and the faces showed expressions that verged on the 'relieved' more than on the 'regretful' side, but then again, the light was very bad.  
  
They had all of France and most of Spain to cross, so they settled down quite comfortably for the long trip. Each of them had brought something to help while away the time. Verne had his notebook and some books on Spain; Passepartout had some copper pipes and wire that he was using to build some kind of steam-powered toaster. Rebecca and Phileas had each other and a stack of documents that constituted Rebecca's briefings for her assignment. They had been busy the whole day preparing the trip, so, all that Rebecca had told them was that it was "a reconaissance mission with a twist". Once they were aloft and with a course set, Fogg served himself a glass of his excellent claret and fixed his wife with a piercing stare.  
  
"So," he said, "do you mind telling me now why are we going to Spain on such short notice?"  
  
"Why, to buy some horses, of course," Rebecca chided, and then sobered up. "It's like this: do you remember Gonzalo Estepa?"  
  
"Our man - I mean, the Service's agent in Seville? Oily, obnoxious, knows everyone from here to Russia and would cheat the Devil himself out of his shirt?"  
  
"The very same. Well, he has been sending information to Chatsworth about some complot to overthrow the monarchy in Spain. Now, you know Gonzalo: he tends to overreact sometimes."  
  
"Mmh," Fogg nodded. "Especially if he sees a benefit on it for himself. I remember the affair in Almadén, with the mines. Disgraceful."  
  
"That's why Chatsworth wants someone else to go there, apparently just to get Estepa's information on the spot, but really to assess the situation and provide help, or plug the holes, if necessary. Her Majesty does not take it kindly when other Royal Houses are threatened. Sets a very bad precedent."  
  
"And if I remember Estepa, he would think that a mere woman is nothing to care about except to woo her. He would not take your presence as an insult to his work, thus keeping things nice and smooth from Chatsworth's point of view," Fogg said, taking a sip of claret and smiling.  
  
"Precisely. And apart from everything, I may have mentioned to Chatsworth that we were thinking about going to Spain anyway, to buy some horses," Rebecca said.  
  
"You are a scheming creature, Rebecca: you bullied him into giving you this mission, did you not?"  
  
"Guilty as charged," she said, with a wide, mischievous smile. Fogg chuckled and sighed.  
  
"Very well. Though I must say I do not look forward to meeting Estepa again. Nasty, rude fellow."  
  
"I'll try to keep you two apart as much as I can. I don't like the man either, but, well, he has proven his worth in the past."  
  
"Yes, about that: just how likely is this supposed complot, anyway?"  
  
"I have Estepa's briefings here," Rebecca said, waving about some pieces of paper. "From what I've read so far, there's civil unrest in Spain, mild enough so far, but since it comes from intellectuals and small landlords, it may coalesce into something bigger, or at least better organized. It is true that a couple of shipments of weapons have been captured when they were being smuggled through the ports of Almería and Cádiz. And nobody seems to be really happy about the Spanish government."  
  
"Nobody is ever happy about the Spanish government. Is practically a trademark of the place. Deserved, too. I haven't seen such a succession of unworthy rulers in any other country in the whole world."  
  
"Coming from such a supporter of monarchy as you are, Phileas, that scares me."  
  
"Well, it's true," Phileas shrugged, emptying his glass.  
  
"Indeed," Verne said from his place in the padded bench, where he had been absorbed in his book. "You know, compared to some of the people described here, Louis XVII seemed a very nice and wise king."  
  
"Yes, anyway, my mission is to prevent another Revolution, Jules, since it would be contrary to England's interests right now," Rebecca explained, a trifle testily. "And though I can't say that Estepa has it right, I want to look into this weapon smuggling and see who pays for the weapons and why. One thing is clear: at least part of the money does not come from Spanish sources."  
  
"I believe you are right," Fogg said, studying some manifestos. "Most of the activities seem to be centered around seaports and rivers, on the southern cost primarily and a bit on the southeast. This smells of contacts abroad."  
  
"It could be directed from any other place inland, though," Rebecca said.  
  
"True. But once we are there, it will be possible to figure out what is happening, if we - sorry, my dear: you - can actually see those smugglers."  
  
"Must be heavy equipment, in any case," Verne said from his corner, not noticing Rebecca's sudden frown.  
  
"Why do you say that?" Rebecca asked, her brow clearing.  
  
"Well," he replied, pointing at Rebecca's papers and maps, "if those weapons come from inland, the routes available are very bad and they would have to cross at least one mountain range, no matter where they come from. Now, this can be done with mules and such, but not if they have lots of material or if whatever they have is large or heavy. Not if they want to do in secretly, at least. On the other hand, there are lots of small ports and bays all along the coast, not to speak of the Guadalquivir river, that can bring the weapons directly to Seville, using barges. It's faster and safer."  
  
"You know, Jules, I believe you must be right. It's certainly worth looking into it," Rebecca said, taking the maps and studying them with a renewed interest. "For once, it seems that Gonzalo may have done something right."  
  
"Will wonders never cease," Fogg said tersely. He was relieved, in fact: the mission seemed to be a straightforward one. Not entirely risk-free, but he had assumed that long ago. And at least it looked like they wouldn't have to worry about the League of Darkness this time. People with dirigibles don't bother themselves with smuggling routes, by land or sea. Rebecca had not explicitly stated that she wanted him out of her way this time, and that was good too.  
  
"Phileas?"  
  
"Mmh? I'm sorry, my dear, you were saying something?"  
  
"I was asking you were is your friend's house."  
  
"Oh, it's in the Guadalquivir valley, in a charming little spot. Near Seville, too, less than two hour's ride, in fact. You'll be able to move to and fro without trouble."  
  
"Ah, excellent," Rebecca said, not missing the slight emphasis Phileas had put, again, in the 'you'. "It promises to be a very fruitful voyage: a conspiracy and some Spanish horses."  
  
"What else can a human soul desire?" Phileas agreed, mockingly, and served himself another glass.  
  
  
  
  
  
Fogg's cabin in the Aurora had changed slightly since his marriage: a bigger bed had been fitted into it, and a dresser with a mirror had been added, leaving almost no space to walk in. But Rebecca had kept her original small cabin. Theirs was an unorthodox marriage in many aspects, and neither of them wanted to close any options available. So far, however, Rebecca had never reclaimed her space in that cabin, and this night was no exception.   
  
"Are you patronizing me, Phileas?" she said that night, bluntly, braiding her hair for the night. She caught his eyes in the mirror and for a moment forgot to breathe. But he didn't react in any spectacular way. He walked to her, put his long hands on her shoulders, caressed the skin lightly through the cloth of her nightgown. She fought to suppress the urge to lean back, rest her head on his chest.  
  
"Why do you say that?" he asked softly, eyes unreadable.  
  
"You've been emphasizing, not too subtly, that this is my mission and mine alone. Which I already knew. I don't need you to grant me the liberty to act on my own."  
  
Her eyes, on the mirror, were hard and clear, but frank, not hostile. Phileas drew a long breath and took his hands from her shoulders. She felt very cold all of a sudden.  
  
"I know. But I need you to believe that I won't interfere unless you ask me to."  
  
"I don't..." she started, and shut up. Yes, she had thought that after their marriage Phileas would give himself the right to interfere with her life as much as he wanted. But he hadn't, not once. Of course, that could be because she hadn't been in a real mission since, and now that she seemed to have one, she had been fearing that her initiative would be taken from her under the excuse of their marriage vows.   
  
Suddenly Phileas was by her side, crouching on the floor, taking her hand in his.   
  
"Rebecca, listen to me," he said, softly. "What I want you to realize, and I admit I've been very bad at expressing it, is that you are - whole. You are mine as much as I am yours, you know that, and may God strike me dead if I willingly do anything that makes you feel, well... less. I won't interfere, I won't be in your way, and I will worry every second that you are away on a mission. Which I can't help doing, but I hope you know that I can cope with it quite well by now," he said. Hell, it was almost true.  
  
She knew. She had been taking some foolish risks in the past, just to spite him, because she saw that worry as a sign that he didn't have confidence in her abilities, which at some point, she suspected, must have been the case.  
  
Now he released her hand, but she left it there, nestled in his. Her wedding ring winked in the lamplight: the diamond mounted in a wide band of steel and platinum was not just a beautiful jewel: it hid three secrets, none of them nice. His gift to her: his way of telling her that he knew, exactly, what she faced because of her chosen profession and that he was releasing her to it even as they were joining their lives together.  
  
He had taught her some very hard lessons. Sometimes she felt she had learnt them better than Phileas himself. After all, she was still in the Service.  
  
"I am whole," she said, "because I am with you, no matter where I am. You do know that, don't you?" There were so many things said, and unsaid, in that short sentence. So many layers of their two lives. Rebecca hoped that he understood at least some of them.   
  
He didn't look up. His finger was tracing softly the skin around her wedding band, and she was in imminent danger of forgetting the rest of her body. But he nodded, once.  
  
"Strangely enough, I know it," he said, chuckling. "So, let us not try to convince each other about things we already know, mmh? What do you say?"  
  
Now he rose his eyes to hers. There was faint self-mockery in them -he was not a man prone to put words to his emotions, and he always felt embarrassed when doing so-, and a little fear, too. She was getting better and better at reading those incredible eyes. She smiled.  
  
"I agree completely," she said, and chuckled. Her hands flew up, one of them caressed his face lightly. He shuddered and rose, with a smooth movement like a cat's.  
  
"Shall we considered the matter settled, then?" he said in an almost normal voice. "You will carry on with your mission and I will buy horses, and we will help each other when and if required."  
  
It sounded cold and heartless, except for the fact that, while saying that, he had been caressing the nape of her neck and murmuring into her ear.  
  
"When and if required," she echoed him, turning her face to his. "That sounds eminently sensible."  
  
"Ah, but," he whispered, his lips barely touching hers, "we are not eminently sensible, Rebecca."  
  
"I hope not, Phileas," she whispered back, one arm crawling up his back. "I really do hope not."  
  
She rose from the chair; he was there to receive her.  
  
The Aurora sailed on.  
  
  
  
  



	4. In which our heroes meet a number of peo...

Chapter Four  
  
In which our heroes meet a number of people, and a number of horses, and Rebecca dresses up for the night  
  
  
  
The next morning found them already over Spain, after a remarkably quiet crossing of the Pirineos, the mountain range that acted as a natural border between Spain and France. Some quick reckoning showed them that if everything went fine they would arrive at the cortijo by midafternoon. Early in the afternoon, preparations began; everybody started gathering their belongings, or, rather, Passepartout started gathering everybody's belongings while Fogg sipped claret, Rebecca considered two different bonnets, and Verne dozed happily in a blessed silence, completely free of birds.  
  
"I do hope we'll have some degree of independence there," Rebecca murmured. "I'd hate to spend all the time making excuses not to go to parties and dances."  
  
"I wouldn't worry. We are there on business and maybe to see the sights, therefore we will be expected to go out quite a lot. Besides, Don Fernando is the soul of discretion. If he finds our behaviour strange, he'll just blame it on English eccentricity."  
  
"Well, that's a good one," Jules said, opening an eye. "The English, eccentric? The very idea!"  
  
"Spoke the man who spends his free time drawing things he sees in visions," laughed Rebecca, tossing aside both bonnets carelessly. "You'll have to be careful there, Jules."  
  
"Speaking of visions, Verne, could you make yourself useful and try to envision a way to make one of Passepartout's devices, if not useful, at least harmless?" Fogg said, reminding everybody of the morning's culinary catastrophe.  
  
"It was a very stolid idea, master," Passepartout said, hurt.  
  
"Passepartout, when one builds a steam-powered toaster, one does try to keep the toast /away/ from the steam, I would think."  
  
"I thought that the English cuisine held no more terrors for me, and there I was this morning, breakfasting on boiled toast," Jules said, chuckling. "Well, cheer up, Passepartout, it wasn't your fault. It looked simple enough on the paper."  
  
"Yes," Rebecca said, once again perusing her briefings. "Everything looks simple enough on paper."  
  
  
  
  
  
When they got out of the 'Aurora', some distance away from the cortijo, Verne was surprised. He had expected Spain to be quite desert-like, a hot and dusty country. At least that had been his impression while they were flying over it. Instead, he found himself in the middle of the fertile Valley of the Guadalquivir. A short ride from there, there were sun-roasted bushes, dry rocks and yellow earth, but here there were trees and luscious greenery everywhere. It was, however, very hot, and he rushed back to the 'Aurora' to leave his jacket there. Fogg had dressed himself in something blindingly white made of linen, and Rebecca was in a light summer dress of the color of new leaves. The strong sunlight, falling on the ground like molten gold, set her hair aflame.  
  
A short distance from the 'Aurora' was a path of packed dust, and two horses were coming down it towards them. Fogg narrowed his eyes against the light, and then smiled.  
  
"It's all right," he said, "it's Don Fernando."   
  
Rebecca relaxed, unfurled her parasol, and took Fogg's arm, the very image of the proper English lady. Verne watched the men.  
  
The older of the two was riding an extremely handsome palomino horse, tall and strong-built. The rider looked about sixty years old, and was quite short and thin. He was dressed in black (which seemed to Verne an extremely foolish idea in this heat), in an old-fashioned suit of good quality but rather worn. His scarce hair was almost white, and he wore a short iron-grey beard. He had a strong, long nose, and sunburnt skin. When he recognized Fogg, his severe expression broke into a kind smile of uneven teeth.  
  
The other man rode a dark long-legged chestnut. The horse appeared skittish, and it was not clear whether this was because of the animal's temperament or the rider's clumsiness. He was a tall man, with a round body and long, thin legs. His thick, curly hair and his very large eyes gave him a sort of boyish charm belied by the ugly, thin-lipped mouth, and the thick five o'clock shadow on his cheeks and chin. He too smiled when he saw Fogg and his small entourage. Two gold teeth flashed in the sun.  
  
"That's Estepa!" Rebecca exclaimed, not too agreeably surprised, and immediately set her face in a bland welcoming smile.  
  
"If that slimy idiot utters but a word about the mission here," she muttered through stiff lips, "I'll kill him right on the spot."  
  
"Easy, my dear," Phileas said, amused. "That's hardly the proper thing to do in front of our host."  
  
"I don't care. How does he-," she began, and then had to stop when the two horses reached them. Don Fernando dismounted gracefully and went to Fogg, his hand extended. The Englishman shook it with good cheer.  
  
"It's good to see you again, Don Fernando," he said. "You look not a day older."  
  
"You always were a charming liar, Phileas," the Spaniard said, in correct, if heavily accented, English. "I am a dry twig and you, you look like a strong oak yourself. By the Virgin, you look well! It was about time for you to pay us a visit."  
  
"I was looking forward to seeing you again, Don Fernando. I'd like to introduce my wife Rebecca, my good friend, Monsieur Jules Verne, and my valet, Passepartout."  
  
Don Fernando turned to Rebecca and bowed with such courtly elegance that Rebecca's eyebrows went up in some amazement. He kissed her hand as if she were the Queen.  
  
"Madam. It is a veritable pleasure to meet you."  
  
"The pleasure is all mine, Don Fernando."  
  
To Passepartout, Don Fernando gave a short but warm handshake and a brief smile. The 'monsieur' got Verne a little bow apart from the handshake. Don Fernando addressed to each in perfect French, muttering polite welcomes.   
  
Meanwhile, Rebecca scowled at Gonzalo Estepa, who had dismounted much less gracefully than his older companion and was walking towards them.  
  
"I believe you know Don Gonzalo Estepa," Don Fernando said, turning to him. "He was kind enough to escort me to greet you, as soon as we saw your very remarkable ship approaching."  
  
The grave reserve of the old gentleman could not hide the wonder in his voice when he looked at the 'Aurora', glinting in the sunlight. Estepa also gave the ship a look a bit less admiring and a lot more predatory, and then shook Fogg's hand.  
  
"I was so looking forward to meeting with you again, Mister Fogg," he said in perfect English. "It's been a long time."  
  
"A long time indeed," said Fogg blandly. "You remember Rebecca, of course."  
  
"She is utterly unforgettable," Estepa said, and pressed his lips to Rebecca's hand. "Madam. Such a pleasure I did not expect."  
  
"Don Gonzalo, you look well," Rebecca said, with the slightest inflection in her voice indicating that this could change in a moment's notice.  
  
"I must apologize for riding here," Don Fernando said. "We saw your airship a bit late and did not want you to arrive and find no one, so we took the horses to arrive on time. If you don't mind, we'll walk home, it is not far."  
  
"Actually, I think it is an excellent idea, given the purpose of our visit. Rebecca, my dear, do you mind if I walk with Don Fernando for a while? If that beautiful palomino is an example of what's in his stables, we have much to talk about."  
  
"Go ahead, dearest," Rebecca said, with such domestic fondness in her voice that Jules blinked in surprise, almost missing the following, sharp-edged words, "I'd like to talk to Gonzalo myself."  
  
Estepa offered her his arm. She took it and he winced: her grip was like a vise. Fogg and Villares went ahead; Rebecca let them put some space between her and Estepa and then almost dragged the man forward.  
  
"What are you doing here? Do you want to blow my cover, you fool?" she hissed.  
  
"Hardly," he said, trying futilely to free his arm from her grip. "I know Don Villares. I told him you were all acquaintances of mine. He won't suspect a thing, Miss Fogg."  
  
"He'd better not," she said, forgetting, as usual, to correct the treatment. "I was counting on meeting you in Seville, secretly. Not here. You'd better have a good excuse for us spending a lot of time together."  
  
"Well, you could be cheating on your husb- Ow!"  
  
"If you even /think/ about that again, I'll break it."  
  
"I'm not sure you didn't just now!"  
  
"Don't whine, Gonzalo. It doesn't become a Spanish gentleman. Now: we must discuss matters as soon as possible. What do you suggest?" she eased the pressure and Estepa could relax, though he was still gulping nervously.  
  
"The cortijo has an orange groove in a secluded spot. We can meet there tonight: there will be no one. I'll take my leave well before that, so no one would suspect that I'm still around."  
  
"All right," Rebecca said after a brief hesitation. "Just tell me this: how serious do you think this matter is? Honestly, now."  
  
Estepa seemed to ponder the question earnestly.  
  
"Honestly... I'm not sure. I don't have enough evidence yet. But if my worst scenario is confirmed, we could be dealing with a major conspiracy against the Spanish crown. There is a group of republican partisans in Seville who would love to see Queen Isabel out of Spain, if not of this world. They are loud, but so far, quite harmless."  
  
"I see."  
  
"You can review my data tonight, but my theory is that they have contacted some foreign source with a lot of money and that they want to... escalate things. Get them to a new level, maybe even... a revolt."  
  
Rebecca did not care for dramatic pauses.  
  
"And who are 'they', exactly, Gonzalo?"  
  
Estepa looked uncomfortable.  
  
"Oh, well, there are several candidates. I'm still working on that..."  
  
"You don't have a clue."  
  
"If you want to put it that way."  
  
The cortijo was on sight. Rebecca muttered a fierce "We'll talk about this tonight," and with a last squeeze that made Estepa flinch, they joined the group.  
  
  
  
  
  
'Los Villares', as the cortijo was called, could be considered a small village rather than a house. There were little houses, cottages, stables and huts all around, and in the center, an extremely beautiful building, blindingly white in the sun, atop a small elevation covered in flowers and small trees. The façade had been highlighted with yellow paint around windows and doors, and red and pink geraniums were under every window and in big clay pots against every corner. The whole effect was so delightful as to be almost edible. Even Fogg could not but comment on how nice the house looked.  
  
"Well, that's all because of my daughter-in-law Vicenta," Don Fernando said, pleased by the reaction of his visitors. "She came here with her family from Valencia, after my wife died, and has proven to be the most extraordinary housekeeper. A great cook, too, you'll see. Let us all go inside and have some refreshments."  
  
The word 'refreshments' made Verne sigh with relief. The walk had not been long, but the sun was strong and the young writer was feeling hot and flushed. He watched Fogg with envy: the man was as neat and cat-like as ever, and Rebecca looked like a light breeze surrounded her everywhere. Therefore, Verne was very pleasantly surprised when they entered the house and found themselves in a handsome square patio surrounded with low arches. The ground had been liberally sprinkled with water, and a small fountain in the center splashed and murmured soothingly. Small trees had been planted all around the perimeter, and cool tiled walls decorated in the mozárabe style, with beautiful geometric motifs in blue, white and yellow, kept the air inside the patio some degrees cooler than outside.  
  
Don Fernando's family was waiting for them around a wide wicker table loaded with drinks and small plates with some delicacies. They rose to greet them and smiled politely as they were being introduced.  
  
Don Fernando's oldest son, Cosme, was a short man in his thirties, slim as his father but with light hair and a tendency to develop a paunch. His brown eyes were merry and warm, and he saluted them in faulty, if enthusiastic, English. He had married into a wealthy family from Valencia, but now he had brought his wife and two daughters to live with Don Fernando and take care of the cortijo.   
  
His wife, Vicenta, was a short, plump woman with a high voice and a contagious smile. She spoke in awful French and said something in rapid Spanish that Don Fernando translated as a desire for them to have a very good time while here and an admiring comment about Rebecca's hair. Rebecca, not very confident about her Spanish, murmured a 'Gracias' that won her the open admiration of the whole reunion. An Englishwoman speaking Spanish! Imagine that! So clever! Their two daughters, Cosme said, were absent at the moment, but they would meet them sooner than later, no doubt.  
  
Also absent was Don Fernando's second child, his daughter Rocío. She had married a businessman from Galicia, in the Northwest, and could not visit them until Christmas. So they turned to the youngest son, Manuel.  
  
He was about Verne's age and height, but Manuel had black hair and dark brown eyes. Taller than his father and brother, and with a quite athletic figure and handsome, regular features, Rebecca figured the lad was breaking more than one young heart in the social circles of Seville. He spoke passable English and saluted them with great charm. Rebecca was delighted to see him blush slightly when she squeezed his hand. He looked, she thought, like a romantic poet that had been eating well and taking exercise for a couple of years instead of moping around damp cemeteries. Fogg looked at him with special attention, and smiled broadly, making a comment about how he had changed since he had last seen him. His handshake was firm, man to man, and Manuel seemed very pleased about it.  
  
They all sat to drink cold lemonade and eat some pastries and sugared fruits, allowing the soothing atmosphere of the patio to refresh them after the walk. Fogg made pleasant small talk, sometimes in a Spanish that grew more confident by the second, and Rebecca won everybody to her side by praising the small pastries in Spanish. Of course, thought Verne, sipping lemonade, Rebecca would win everybody to her side just by breathing. Manuel was looking at her quite open-mouthed.  
  
It was readily established that they would have an early dinner and then pay a preliminary visit to the stables before sundown, if their guests were not too tired. No, their guests were not too tired, to the contrary, and they would be delighted to see more of the cortijo.   
  
"Let me show you your rooms," Vicenta said, rising. "We'll send some people to your flying ship for your things at once."  
  
"Passepartout will take care of that, won't you, Passepartout?"   
  
"Of course, master! I am going all rapidly," the valet said, surreptitiously snatching a couple of pastries for the road.  
  
"I'm afraid I have to make my excuses now," Gonzalo Estepa said, rising.  
  
"But Don Gonzalo, won't you stay for dinner?"  
  
"Alas, no, madam. I have a previous appointment in Seville and I must not be late. Thank you for a charming afternoon."  
  
"Do come again, Don Gonzalo. I'm sure your friends here will appreciate your company."  
  
"That is most kind of you, Doña Vicenta. Goodbye, now," he bowed to everyone, shook Don Fernando's hand, and departed. Fogg and Rebecca exchanged a quick glance; she nodded imperceptibly.  
  
  
  
Their rooms were in one of the corners of the main building.  
  
"This is the oldest part of the house," Don Fernando explained. "The rooms here are not perhaps the most luxurious, but they are the coolest. I think you'll be comfortable in them."  
  
"They are lovely, Don Fernando," Rebecca said, eyeing appreciatively the clean, airy rooms, simply but charmingly furnished.  
  
"I had another reason to choose these, actually. If you would follow me," the gentleman said. He opened a narrow door at the end of the corridor and went down a short flight of stairs that ended in a small arch opening to a long, low building.  
  
"The old stables. There are too few stalls here, so we don't really use them anymore, but I had them ready for you. You see, since you come here to buy horses, I thought I'd let you sample the goods, as it were, while you stay with us. A few of my darlings are here, and Miguel will take care of them for you."  
  
The stables smelled of dry clean straw and damp earth. Soft snorting sounds could be heard from some of the stalls. Don Fernando stopped in front of one that held a chestnut of rich red-brown color, with black mane and tail.  
  
"Do you remember the horse that you used to ride when you came here, Phileas?"  
  
"Of course. Dear Ligero. It was a pleasure riding him."  
  
"This is his daughter, Preciosa. I believe you will like her. For the lady," he said, with a bow to Rebecca, "there is Festivo, over there, the other chestnut with the star in the forehead. He has a delicate mouth, but he's very intelligent, and quite fast, too. Now, I don't know if you gentlemen ride..."  
  
Passepartout nodded with a wide smile, his eyes studying the horses, and Verne appeared uncomfortable.  
  
"Passepartout can ride anything under the sun, I believe," Fogg said, "if you don't mind the beast in question going mad afterwards. He has a quite unique style. And Verne is, ah... more of an urban gentleman."  
  
"What Fogg is too kind to say, Don Fernando, is that I'm a very bad rider," Verne said, blushing. The man studied him for a moment.  
  
"We shall see about that, monsieur Verne, we shall see about that," he turned to Miguel, a young man with bad teeth that was watching the scene with his mouth open. "¡Miguel! ¡Vete a las cuadras grandes y tráete la yegua paso fino!"  
  
"¿La Pícara?"  
  
"No, trae a Nube. Y la silla buena. Anda, corre," Miguel disappeared and Don Fernando turned to Verne, smiling.  
  
"I think you'll find this mount agreeable to you, sir. Now, let's go back upstairs. I'll give you the key that opens both this little door and the stable door. Miguel is entirely at your service. Please, feel free to use these horses as if they were yours, anytime."  
  
"This is exceedingly kind of you, Don Fernando," Phileas said, giving Preciosa a last admiring stare as they all went up the narrow stairs.  
  
"Not at all, not at all. I do believe that guests should feel quite at home while they stay at my house, and besides, you know how to treat my beauties. I'll show you the big stables after dinner, if you like. And now I'll leave you, so that you can freshen up and rest. Good evening, my friends."  
  
  
  
"I'll make some excuse after dinner, Phileas," Rebecca said as they changed clothes in their room. She bent over to lace up the boots of her leather outfit. "I'm meeting with Estepa tonight."  
  
"Do you really need to wear that?" Phileas asked, slipping into a dark grey dinner jacket. His cravat hung loose, awaiting the deft hands of Passepartout. "You are going to melt inside that thing here, Rebecca."  
  
"One never knows," she said, as she adjusted a dark green dress that lit up her hair beautifully. The bodice hid three throwing knives and a lasso, but no one really needed to know that. Phileas acknowledged this truism with a grunt.  
  
"What did Estepa say?" he asked after a while.  
  
"Nothing, actually. He repeated what was already in his briefings, which is not very encouraging. I intend to press him a little tonight. I may need to follow him, afterwards, so, don't worry if I'm not back immediately."  
  
Phileas nodded, watching her intently.  
  
"You don't trust him?"  
  
"It's too soon to tell. My assignment includes evaluating Estepa's work here, and so far my evaluation is 'fishy'. I think I'd better be thorough about the whole matter. After all, we spies have to be rather fishy if we are to survive in this business." She winked, and Phileas smiled briefly. "Where did you put the map of the area, Phileas?"  
  
"Over there."  
  
"Thank you," she slipped the map into a pocket. "We'll see what this is all about soon. Maybe it's nothing major after all and we can enjoy our stay here."  
  
"Rebecca, nothing would bring you more joy than to discover that this is something major after all," Phileas said, trying to appear nonchalant and almost succeeding.  
  
"Hardly that, Phileas. But I do admit I've been wishing for a mission like this."  
  
"Be careful what you wish for..." Phileas murmured under his breath, turning to check himself in the mirror. His reflection showed him someone quite different from the twenty-something-year-old man that had spent a wonderful autumn in this very house. That young man had also wished for a big mission, an adventure, a chance to shape the world, to make a difference.  
  
And he got his wish, oh, yes.  
  
Rebecca hadn't heard him. She put her earrings on (one hid a lockpick and the other a diamond tip able to cut glass) and went to stand beside him.   
  
"Estepa cheats at cards," he said casually, offering his arm. She took it. "He's actually quite skilled, you can hardly see him coming. He is very good at misleading people. Even if he's on your side, you'd be wise to keep an eye on him."  
  
"I'll keep that in mind."  
  
Phileas swallowed a thousand other remarks, advices, comments. If he started he wouldn't stop, and Rebecca hardly needed that. He smiled at her, she smiled back. There was a fierce joy under her smile. What was under his, no one could tell.  
  
Passepartout appeared to put the finishing touches in his master's attire, followed by Verne, correctly dressed in his only formal suit.  
  
"Look at us!" Passepartout said, "All dressed in the high style! I'm believing that we are going to get much diversions here!"  
  
"Indeed, we may," Rebecca said, and smiled charmingly. "Shall we go down?"  
  
  
End of Chapter Four  
  



	5. In which Rebecca finds that she doesn't ...

Chapter Five  
In which Rebecca finds that she doesn't like the things she finds  
  
  
Rebecca jumped from 'Preciosa' with an 'Oof'. Maybe I shouldn't have taken that second helping at dinner, she thought, her mouth watering at the recollection of the feast that Doña Vicenta had prepared for them. Nor that third helping, either. She had tried to eat sparingly, remembering that she had a busy night ahead of her. She had almost succeeded.   
  
Now she left 'Preciosa' at the edge of the orange tree orchard. She had taken the mare and not her 'Festivo' because the latter's white spot was too visible in the velvety blue-black of the spring night. Now she tethered her to a convenient branch and advanced cautiously.   
  
Estepa was sitting on the low stone wall that surrounded the orchard, smoking a cigar. Rebecca approached him from behind and waited. He didn't react. Rebecca sighed and touched him on the shoulder, and Estepa managed to jump two feet in the air while still sitting. Some very strong Spanish expletives scared a little owl out of its perch in one of the trees.  
  
"Miss Fogg! Kindly do not do that again," Estepa gasped, recognizing her.  
  
"I could have killed you on the spot, Gonzalo," Rebecca said, reproachingly. "That's not good. The cigar is not good either."  
  
"I'm not exactly a field agent like you, Miss Fogg," Estepa recovered his composure, then took notice of Rebecca's leather outfit and lost it again. "Er."  
  
"Tell me about the smugglers," Rebecca said.  
  
"Um. Yes. Um. Smugglers."  
  
"Gonzalo, sit straight, you are all doubled over."  
  
"Ggh."   
  
Rebecca followed Estepa's guilty gaze.  
  
"Oh, I see. Let me help you with that."  
  
"Ow!"  
  
"There. Nothing like a good punch in the solar plexus to help with these little masculine problems, I always say. Now. The smugglers. Tell me about them."  
  
Estepa, pale but much recovered, told her. In the social circles of Seville there had been lately much talk against the Monarchy as an institution in general, and against Queen Isabel in particular. There was a strong presence of republican theories and ideologies in all the chats and reunions at the cafés, where the intellectuals met and talked endlessly. This in itself was normal; what was not were the incidents that had been happening lately in the streets of Seville, generally late at night. Police stations had been attacked. The residence that the Queen used when she visited had been repeatedly defaced and vandalized, and the guards pelted with eggs. More seriously, some shots had been fired and some people had been detained carrying firearms. The most vocal subversive groups had gone to ground, and the pamphlets had begun using a much more militant and directly threatening language. There was a distinct feeling of uneasiness and imminent crisis all over Seville.  
  
A few nights ago, a guard had been shot. The police had been investigating and, surprisingly (Estepa's opinion of the Spanish police was not very complimentary), they had found an unusual number of firearms being smuggled into the city.   
  
"They know that the weapons are being distributed to the more violent groups, but they don't know who is distributing them and they haven't been able to find out the drop point or the leaders. Now, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the republicans are involved."  
  
"Given the choice of targets," Rebecca supplied, "all of them symbols of Monarchy."  
  
"Precisely. So far it has been isolated incidents, minor acts of violence if you like. But I have reason to believe that the next shipment is going to be much more important and is going to carry some pieces of artillery."  
  
"Artillery!"  
  
"Or something big, at least," Estepa amended. "Look, I don't really know. But what I do know is that today there's going to be a meeting about that, at midnight, outside Seville."  
  
"What? Where?"  
  
"By an old abandoned watermill. I know where it is. But-"  
  
Rebecca had already jumped to her feet, but stopped at the hesitant tone in Estepa's voice.  
  
"Gonzalo? What is it?"  
  
"Well, it's just... Why did you choose the Villares cortijo to stay?"  
  
"It provided a good cover story," Rebecca explained, not missing the slight uneasiness in Estepa's voice. "Also, Phileas and Don Fernando are old friends. Why?"  
  
"I'd have to tell you... No. No, it will be better if I show you. Let's go."  
  
  
  
They rode for the better part of an hour. The moon was high in the sky now, and its light was barely enough for the horses to keep a slow, easy canter along the clear dusty roads. Estepa took his mount towards a small group of willows and dismounted. Rebecca joined him and saw him point towards a dark, square shadow down a smooth slope.  
  
"There's the mill," Estepa whispered. "Let's go around it. Carefully, now."  
  
In fact, Rebecca moved much more silently that Estepa, who was huffing and puffing from the ride. The Spaniard stopped her with a touch when they were still a few paces from the mill.   
  
"Voices," he said. Rebecca listened and indeed heard the soft murmur of two male voices. Estepa pointed: just around the corner of the small building stood two figures, one of them dressed in a suit and the other in some sort of bulky overcoat. From where they were it was impossible to listen to what they were saying. However, they appeared to be having some kind of strong disagreement. Moving slowly, Rebecca took her night glass from her pouch and trained it to the two men.  
  
One of them, the one in the overcoat, had a long, vaguely horsey face, a broken nose, a mole in one temple. Easy enough to recognize, she thought, satisfied. Then she turned to the man in the suit.  
  
And forgot to breathe.  
  
It was Manuel Villares.  
  
  
  
She came back from a long distance to hear the urgent whisper of Estepa.  
  
"Miss Fogg? Miss Fogg, I'm going to get a little bit closer, I want to know what they're saying."  
  
"I'll- I'll go," Rebecca said automatically, her mind still reeling with the implications of what she had just seen.  
  
"With all due respect, Miss Fogg, I'm much more familiar with the language. Please keep watch, make sure no one else is around."  
  
Rebecca nodded, half of her brain registering Estepa's not very stealthy movements, the other half thinking, But he's just a child, barely a man, and then remembering that she was even younger when she learned how to use lethal weapons. And then, Oh Lord, how am I going to tell Phileas?  
  
Estepa returned. Remembering that she was supposed to keep watch, Rebecca felt a little guilty and more than a little angry. Wake up, you fool, she thought. You know better than to let your mind wander while in the field.   
  
"They are going to receive a shipment in one hour," Estepa was whispering urgently into her ear, and Rebecca returned full force to reality. The argument seemed to go on still, with Manuel raising his voice slightly. Rebecca caught the word 'nunca'. Never.  
  
"Where?" she asked Estepa.  
  
"Down the river, closer to the city, where one of the big channels is," Estepa pointed towards the gurgling noise of the Guadalquivir, a streak of damp coolness in the night.  
  
The two men seemed to have finished their argument. Manuel was walking away with long, furious strides. But he was going up river, not down. And the other man was also going away from the river. She made up her mind in a second.  
  
"You follow Manuel. Find out who the other man is. Take care not to be seen, and report to me first thing tomorrow morning."  
  
"What are you-?"  
  
"I'm going to see what that shipment's about."  
  
"Miss F- Rebecca, this is madness! You cannot go there alone, without reinforcements, without..."  
  
"Gonzalo, shut up and go. You are losing precious time," she lowered her voice, "And if you lose Manuel, I will personally punch your nose out through your ear. I have to see this shipment for myself."  
  
The threat was playful; the eyes were not. Estepa met her clear, hard gaze, gulped, and scrambled back towards his horse.  
  
  
  
It took Rebecca considerably more than one hour to find the place. She had to ride carefully and as silently as she could, and when she finally heard noises coming from the riverbank, she dismounted while still quite far away and approached the spot with every possible precaution. She didn't even need the night glass to make out at least five men by the river, busily carrying cases and some strange bulks covered in oiled cloth to the shore, piling them up in a cart. Rebecca's fingers itched with the urge to lift those cloths and open those cases, but there was no clear way for her to reach the cart without being seen... The river, maybe, she thought. She could swim around, approach the barge from behind, and then... what, make them think she was a large carp splashing out of the water? Nevertheless, going towards the river would give her a better view of what was going on, maybe a way to hide herself in the cart... She joined action to thought and started down, hiding behind some handy bushes, when a sixth man, wearing a long black leather coat, appeared from somewhere beyond the cart and said something in strangely accented French. Rebecca's ears perked up, as the man took one of the covered bundles and walked away from the cart again, urging the workers to hurry up, which they did, noisily.  
  
Now, theoretically, it was perfectly possible for Rebecca Fogg to be in the vicinity of a suspicious man dressed in black and not follow him, if certain conditions were met, to wit: the man should be outside a steel strong box, with Rebecca sealed up inside the box, laying there very still or, preferably, unconscious.   
  
This not being the case, she retraced her steps, went around the cart from the other side and ran silently after the dark figure. She saw him met yet another man (My, isn't the Guadalquivir a nice little spot for secret meetings, she thought), not far from the cart. They were facing a pile of empty cases that had been left just between Rebecca and them. It was too good to be true; Rebecca ducked, waited for the moment, ran, and hid behind them  
  
Leather Coat had changed to Spanish to talk to the newest addition to the group, a short, squat fellow with a protruding jaw and no neck.  
  
"This is it," said Leather Coat, patting the bundle.  
  
"Will it work? I really don't trust these new inventions," No Neck said grumpily.  
  
"That's why I asked you to come here tonight, for a demonstration. Now, watch."  
  
He uncovered the thing. It was some kind of... gourd? Some kind of big, oddly-shaped flask, and a hose. The contraption looked slightly like an oversized bagpipe, and slightly like one of Verne's inventions.  
  
Or one of the League's.  
  
Leather Coat said something, there was a whoosh, and Rebecca almost yelped: a thick jet of liquid doused her form head to toe, spattering over the cases and her persona liberally. There followed some very strong language from Leather Coat, and a mocking comment from No Neck. Still startled and puzzled, Rebecca wiped her eyes, which stung mightily when the substance had reached them.  
  
Then her sense of smell got her full attention, as well as some clicking mechanical noises from Leather Coat. Rebecca gasped in horrified realization and then her muscles took over. Forgetting about precautions, stealth and the mission, she ran as fast as she could in a blind panic, with no other thought apart from getting away from there.  
  
  
  
Phileas paced the small sitting room like a caged tiger.   
  
"It's not possible, I tell you!"  
  
"Phileas, I saw him with my own eyes," Rebecca said, wearily. "There isn't the slightest doubt: it was Manuel." She was sitting at the table, wrapped in a nightgown, her hair still damp after the hurried and quite frantic bath she had taken as soon as she arrived to the safety of her room.   
  
"He was not at the drop point, maybe he didn't know."  
  
"He led us directly there," she retorted curtly, and Phileas shut up and resumed his pacing.  
  
Verne was sitting at the table too, doodling idly.  
  
"This machine you saw," he asked, glancing nervously towards Fogg, who was visibly trembling with suppressed rage, "was it something like this?"  
  
Rebecca shuddered. "I didn't stop long enough to watch, Jules," she said. "Yes, I believe it is a good likeness, as far as I can tell."  
  
"It's a pity you didn't get a sample of that liquid," Verne said, absently.  
  
"Jules, I was not about to sit and squeeze what smelled to me like rocket fuel from my hair so that you could indulge in a bit of scientific inquiry!"  
  
"N-no, of course not, Rebecca, I'm sorry," Verne stammered, taken aback by the fury in Rebecca's words. Phileas gave her a worried look; he knew how much fear was behind that outburst. Rebecca patted Verne's hand and smiled briefly by way of an apology.  
  
"I'm having the sample," Passepartout said, coming back from the bedroom where he had been tidying things up after Rebecca's bath. "It's in Miss... Mrs. Rebecca's clothes, much many of it," he produced a small flask filled with a murky fluid.  
  
"I want that thing analyzed as soon as possible, Passepartout." Rebecca said.  
  
"I'm doing it fastly, but I is thinking I almost know. It smells like coal tar to Passepartout."  
  
"Naphta," Fogg said, having had the privilege of taking first whiff when Rebecca had climbed to their room using the thick buganvilla bush outside and he helped her in. "A device that throws naphta. Very strange."  
  
"Yes. I'm having a full analysis to see better," Passepartout said, and then added, looking at Rebecca, "It was very good that you left there so quickly."  
  
"I know," Rebecca said, remembering how scared she had been of the slightest spark, the tiniest possibility of flame. Her explosive cartridges and flint had been thrown to the river as soon as she thought about them. Even when she arrived to the room, the oil lamp had made her distinctively nervous until she scrubbed the stuff away. Phileas had helped her with silent efficiency, and then had wrapped her up in a blanket and embraced her briefly until she stopped trembling, all the time keeping a carefully controlled and calm expression that Rebecca knew was only skin-deep but for which she had been very grateful nevertheless. After that, they had called Verne and Passepartout and Rebecca had told them her adventures, setting Fogg into a fit of vehement denials that had just now ran out of excuses for Manuel.  
  
Even during dinner it had been very clear where Manuel's political sympathies had lain. In fact, this had driven Verne to him quite a lot, both of them being hopeless romantics and firm believers in democracy. Don Fernando had endured his son's sometimes too heated discourse with a benign, if somewhat fatigued, kindness, with some warnings about not getting too carried away with these ideas. Manuel fitted the profile of the young, hot-blooded revolutionary too well for Rebecca's comfort. But this night there had not been harmless theoretical talk about getting rid of obsolete government systems. This was now about weapons being smuggled into Seville. Guards being shot. And a device that could send a jet of fuel twenty feet into the air.  
  
Even if Rebecca hadn't made the connection by herself in that split second of pure horror, there was Verne, pointing now to a drawing he had just made.  
  
"Look, Rebecca, you can attach a device to the mouth of the hose, so that when the fuel comes out, it's ignited, and throws a jet of flame as far as the propelling mechanism allows."  
  
It was definitely scary, the way Verne's mind worked, she reflected. Give the man free reign and he could design the most horrifying instruments without even being aware of their lethal uses. Such a man had to be protected at all costs. Or maybe humanity had to be protected from such a man at all costs; sometimes she wasn't certain of which.  
  
"Yes, Jules, I thought as much."  
  
It had been a sheer miracle that the ignition device had failed, thus giving her a shower of fuel instead of a fiery death. No skills, no training, no experience counted there. It had been pure, unadulterated chance, of the kind that Phileas knew so well. Maybe that was why he had been so uncharacteristically silent about the implications, which no doubt had occurred to him as soon as he saw her. Smelled her.  
  
"What we will be doing?" Passepartout asked, anguished. "Mister Manuel is a good boy, I know he is. He can be mistaken, he doesn't want to hurt anybody..."  
  
"We cannot do anything yet," Phileas said, looking into space. Thinking.  
  
"That's right," Rebecca said, "Not yet. I'm expecting Estepa's report about Manuel and the man he met. After that, I have to go back to the drop point, see if they left any clues. Then..."  
  
"Then," Phileas supplied, in a cold voice that sent shivers down the valet's spine, "if we need to take a direct course of action, we can get to the group through Manuel." He left the implications of what he had just said hanging chillingly in the air.  
  
"But meanwhile we must act as if nothing had happened," Rebecca warned. "We cannot let Manuel or Don Fernando know anything about this. Verne, burn that drawing. I don't want to see that contraption again if I can help it."  
  
Both Verne and Passepartout took this as a hint that the meeting was over and left, subdued and worried. Rebecca met Fogg's eyes. She lifted her chin, defiantly. Yes, I was scared stiff, her eyes said. Yes, I would do it again in a second.   
  
He extended his hand.  
  
"Come to bed," he said, gently. "You can still get a bit of rest."  
  
She hesitated, but took the hand, and then lay there, wrapped in his arms, not sleeping, but letting herself be comforted by his presence. They kissed just once, and Rebecca didn't comment, nor was surprised, when she tasted the salt of his silent tears of relief.  
  
  



	6. In which Mister Phileas Fogg buys some h...

Chapter Six  
  
In which Mister Phileas Fogg buys some horses  
  
  
  
  
  
"Good morning, Monsieur Verne. Did you sleep well? You look a little pale."  
  
"A good morning to you, Don Fernando. Yes, I slept very well, thank you," /until that damned little owl decided to perch outside my window and hoot all night, and then Passepartout called me and Rebecca told us that she had almost been burned to a crisp and that your youngest son may be involved in weapons smuggling, that is/, Jules did not say. He was still trying to decide whether he was more upset by Rebecca's news, or by the owl.  
  
"Well, I'm glad to hear it. I was afraid the weather here would be a trifle hot for you."  
  
/Oh, more than a trifle hot, in fact/, Jules refrained from commenting, and then smiled politely at his host, who in turn was looking at the horse that Miguel had saddled and was guiding towards them.  
  
"Here is 'Nube', monsieur Verne. Would you care to ride her?"  
  
"Well, Don Fernando, I already told you..."  
  
"Yes, yes, I know. But indulge me, monsieur. She is very sweet and I dare say you'll find her gait quite comfortable."  
  
Jules shrugged and nodded, taking the reins and struggling to reach the stirrup. The mare was quite tall. Miguel offered him his cupped hands and helped him up to the deep, comfortable saddle. 'Nube' wriggled her ears and shifted her weight, giving him an intelligent look with her soft, liquid eyes.  
  
"Just sit, monsieur Verne. Sit down and guide her with knee and heel. She has a delicate mouth."  
  
Jules sighed. More horse gibberish. But he obediently tapped the mare's shining flanks with his heels and she took away, followed by Don Fernando's benign gaze. Then the old man was joined by Fogg.  
  
"Is that the paso fino, Don Fernando?"  
  
"Indeed it is, Phileas."  
  
"She is quite lovely."  
  
"I'm just starting the line. But it's showing great promise. Now, you said yesterday that you'd like to see the Andalusians in the field, is that not so?"  
  
"If it isn't too much trouble."  
  
"Not at all, not at all. That's why you came here in the first place, after all. Please come with me."  
  
The horses were out in a wide, grassy field that made a wonderful setting for them. Leaning on the fence, Phileas let his eyes wander, apparently at random, picking up movement, shape and gait and letting the patterns settle in his mind before trying to decide on one of the wonderful beasts.  
  
"They are all very beautiful," he said, absently.  
  
"They are. But, Phileas, is something troubling you? You seem a bit, how do you say... under the weather."  
  
Phileas cursed silently and turned to Don Fernando with a smile.  
  
"I'm sorry, Don Fernando. I'm perfectly all right. I was just reflecting on how much time has passed since I came here. Manuel was barely a child then, and now he's a grown man."  
  
He wasn't going to say anything. He wasn't. Don Fernando might give him a clue about Manuel, that was all.  
  
"Ah, yes," Don Fernando smiled, a happy grin of paternal pride. "He is a fine young man, my Manuel. Maybe too warm-blooded, but of course, it's only to be expected. Youth, you know. You were much like him, Phileas."  
  
Phileas let out a surprised laugh.  
  
"I was hardly the fervent believer in the Republic that Manuel is!"  
  
"No, you were always the Royalist, I remember," Don Fernando said. "But the passion, the fire, was there. You seem to have settled down now, but I remember how you and your brother took a couple of unbroken horses without my permission, and rode them."  
  
Phileas blushed. It had been a wager between him and Erasmus. It had cost his brother a broken wrist, and him a nasty bump on the head.  
  
"No, no," Don Fernando continued, "you and Manuel are much alike. Of course, now, his head is full of these hare-brained republican ideas, but he will surely grow out of them." There was a hint of bitterness in the old man's voice. "Though sometimes I wonder if that would be a good thing."  
  
"You don't mean that, Don Fernando."  
  
"I am old, Phileas," Don Fernando said, staring straight ahead. "I am old and I have seen much. I was too young when Napoleon invaded us, but I was old enough to be aware of the consequences it brought to everybody. I have seen this country sold to the Bonapartes and recovered at the cost of thousands of lives, only to be offered in a silver plate to a, let's not mince words, damned bugger of a king who didn't deserve a single drop of the blood that was poured in his name, so much blood that all the rivers turned red. Time and time again, the people of this patch of land have been deceived, robbed, lied to, and massacred by the monarchs they kept on foolishly loving. I thought, back in '23, that we were on to something good, only to see those hopes squashed under the most despicable absolutism. And there's a limit to the number of times a man can get up again after falling down."  
  
Phileas felt his throat dry and constricted. When had Don Fernando lost so much of his hope? And what had happened to him, to Phileas Fogg, who heard his own thoughts echo with the dry, joyless sound of the gentleman's words?  
  
"And now a brainless slut of a woman, who only cares about herself and her lovers, sits on the throne, while all around me the farmers and workers die of hunger and suffer under the tyranny of laws that would have been considered too harsh even for the Huns!" the gentleman's hand closed in a fist. "Spain has always paid honor with backstabbing and integrity with scorn, Phileas. I am an old hidalgo, and I know this. This is a country born of the blood of Cain, intent on killing her most brilliant children and rewarding only greed, treachery and envy. Oh, I know this."  
  
There was a brief pause. Don Fernando's face was hard and set, as if carved in wood, his back very straight.  
  
"But I am Don Fernando de Villares y Solferit, and my lineage can be traced to the days of King Alfonso X. As an hidalgo and a gentleman I owe my loyalty to the Crown, however misguided, however ill-fated. Of whatever the Spanish Crown was in the past, only some pathetic rags remain now. But I am bound to these rags, and I must honor my name in consequence, or go down in disgrace. My son Manuel will have to face, God knows, hard enough choices. I pray that he, at least, is spared the humiliation of having to serve the unworthy monarchs to whom I had to bow even as my face reddened in shame."  
  
The old man looked sideways at Phileas, who was very still, and smiled faintly.  
  
"I can't blame Manuel for being a republican," he said. "He has good reasons for becoming one. As long as there isn't another war, I would welcome the end of all I am and all my name stands for, if that means we do not have to suffer people like Fernando VII or Isabel II again. But Spain likes chains, Phileas, either using them on others or wearing them herself. I don't think that a republic is something the people are prepared for, not just now."  
  
Phileas looked at him.  
  
"In my experience, Don Fernando," he said softly, "No one can ever say what the people are or are not prepared for."  
  
Don Fernando sighed, collecting himself, and shook his head, chuckling under his breath.  
  
"Ah, yes, well... You may be right there. I never had much success predicting political events. But, this is hardly the topic to talk about in such a lovely morning, isn't it? And I am distracting you from the horses."  
  
Phileas turned fully towards the Spaniard, watching him in silence for a long instant. Then he grasped the older man's hand and shook it firmly, earnestly, the handshake of two comrades in arms that had just lived through the same desperate battle and find each other in the bloody aftermath, checking how much of them has survived. Don Fernando's eyes narrowed slightly, and something like understanding, and maybe sorrow, dawned in them.  
  
"I see," was his only comment, and then he cleared his throat, starting to say something, when Phileas interrupted him. He had been looking at the horses again.  
  
"Ah. That one." he said, breathlessly, his eyes trained in one of the horses. Don Fernando followed his gaze and laughed.  
  
"Ay, Phileas, you have keen eyes. Indeed, she is a beauty, isn't she?"  
  
"That barely does her justice." The horse that had caught his attention was a young mare that would have made Pegasus weep with envy. She was jet black, not a single white hair anywhere, and her lines were so pure and elegant that she looked more like a sculpture, a Da Vinci dream of a horse. The proud, arched neck supported a small head of broad forehead, shining eyes in which intelligence shone like stars, and the most delicately shaped ears. Everything from her silken mane to the perfect, dainty hooves, was pure pleasure to behold. The muscles moved like the sea under her impossibly black and glossy coat. The ground seemed to want to rise to meet her steps in gratefulness for being trod by her. Phileas devoured her with his eyes and didn't find any fault with her.  
  
"You always had an eye for female beauty, as I remember," Don Fernando chuckled. "She is the daughter of Azabache, the best horse of my friend Augusto Vaquer, of Jerez de la Frontera. His descendants are counted among the best horses in the world."  
  
"Don Fernando, I have never in my life seen such a magnificent creature."  
  
"I believe you. But, alas, I cannot offer her to you."  
  
"Oh," Phileas deflated somewhat. The mare looked even more desirable with every step she took. "Is she spoken for?"  
  
"Not really."  
  
"Is she maybe sick, is there some defect I haven't...?"  
  
"No, as a matter of fact she is very healthy, fast, and strong too."  
  
"Or she doesn't have the brains to accept training, perhaps...?"  
  
"Not in the least. She is, as far as I can tell, the most intelligent horse I've ever met."  
  
"Oh. Of course, then, you'll want to keep her for yourself. I quite understand."  
  
"Not at all. I would be very glad to get rid of her."  
  
Phileas frowned.  
  
"Don Fernando, I'm afraid I don't understand."  
  
"Well, you see, Phileas," Don Fernando said, watching him kindly, "you are a good friend. In all good conscience, I could not offer her to you. I would be doing you a disservice."  
  
Phileas eyed the old man in disbelief and then looked at the mare again. She had broken into the most lovely canter, her mane and tail floating as a dark cloud behind her.  
  
"She's a fiend from Hell, Phileas," Don Fernando explained. "She is the meanest, most wicked, most vicious beast I have ever seen in all my life. She bit off two fingers from my best trainer, Tomás, and has broken more bones and equipment than any other horse in the whole of Andalucía. And you never see her coming: she is cunning and can bide her time so well that the best riders this side of the river Tajo have all been defeated by her. Why, we even changed her name, because 'Dulzura' didn't suit her at all. The worst part is, she answers to her new name as she never answered to the old."  
  
"And what is this new name?" Phileas asked, fascinated.  
  
"'Pesadilla'."  
  
Phileas let out a bark of a laugh that quite startled Don Fernando.  
  
"Sir, I thank you for your concern. But after what you have told me, I think that mare and I are certainly made for each other. Could I ride her?"  
  
"Phileas! I cannot possibly allow it, it would put you at terrible risk!"  
  
"I insist," Phileas said in a voice like a razor, watching the mare intently. Ah, yes. He would, indeed, ride his very own Nightmare.  
  
  
  
  
  
"And what did Jules say about the paso fino?"  
  
"He didn't say anything, really. His expression was enough. Don Fernando actually burst out laughing."  
  
Rebecca chuckled and patted 'Festivo'. The horse had a long, easy stride and didn't seem to tire; she liked him more and more.  
  
"In fact," Phileas continued, making 'Preciosa' prance a little, just for show, "when Verne dismounted he had a most curious glassy stare. He looked at the mare as if he couldn't believe it."  
  
"I guess that a man that can believe in impossible things finds it harder to believe in possible, if unusual, ones," Rebecca said with a smirk. "I gather that you are interested in the mare?"  
  
"Oh, I bought her directly," Phileas said. "I just haven't told Verne yet."   
  
He didn't tell Rebecca about the black mare. His firm resolve to possess her had faltered after his first disastrous try to ride her. It had taken 'Pesadilla' all of two minutes to get him off her back, and though his pride had suffered more than his bones, he had recognized the marks of a very, very tough mount. He would not have an easy time getting her to accept him, if indeed she ever would. She was all Don Fernando had said and more.  
  
"It would be a miracle indeed, if Verne would come to Shillingworth and rode our horses willingly," Rebecca said, smiling. Then she sobered up. It was the first moment they had for themselves since the morning, when a terse message from Estepa had informed Rebecca that after the meeting Manuel had gone straight back to the cortijo, and that he was still trying to find out who the other man was. It was now the afternoon, and under the excuse of a ride through the countryside, Phileas and Rebecca were going to the drop point to look for clues, and, in Rebecca's case, to think of the next step.  
  
And she needed to think very carefully indeed. She looked at Phileas. He was calm and collected, last night's brief emotional outburst forgotten or at least well buried. He was still taking a discreet second position in the affair, although more worried and upset since the news of Manuel's implication. She understood him: she had liked Don Fernando from the start, along with his whole family, and hated to see Manuel involved in something so terrible as what she had witnessed last night.  
  
But, as her mentor and guardian Sir Boniface had taught her so long ago, 'personal' and 'important' were two very different things, and now, the important part was to stop those fearsome fire-throwers from reaching the republican radicals. Or anyone else, for that matter.  
  
"I should have followed them last night," she said aloud, her teeth clenching in self-directed chagrin.  
  
"That would have been a very stupid thing to do," Phileas said curtly, following her thoughts without effort. "You were in no position to do so."  
  
"Maybe. But now, a number of these diabolical things may be loose in Seville, for the radicals to use."  
  
"They are hardly discreet," Phileas said. "I doubt they would issue them as sidearms to wear under the coat. And besides, they don't seem very reliable, do they?"  
  
Rebecca gulped and nodded. How could he talk so casually about that? She had felt the depth of his distress last night. His wordless, raw distress, matched only by her own fear when she had time to think about what could have happened. But now it was a new day, and all the masks and dams and walls and defenses were firmly in place again. On both of them.  
  
The funny thing was that finding out that they both still needed the masks had been a comfort, something familiar to fall back into when emotions were running too high for them both and they couldn't afford it. Like right now.   
  
What counted was that they both knew what was behind the masks, and were not afraid to take them off anymore.  
  
It took them a surprisingly short time to reach the drop point by the river. It was a pleasant little spot by daylight, with the water sparkling under the sun and the birds singing sweetly from the trees.  
  
"Ah," Phileas said, and Rebecca gulped again. A broad patch of burnt grass betrayed the place where the boxes had been. Apparently the second test had been successful. Phileas had dismounted and was examining the grass.  
  
"Naphta," he said, smelling his fingertips and frowning. The physical evidence of the power of that weapon was quite terrifying: the grass had been burned well down to the roots.  
  
"That fire would stick to anything it reaches," he said, trying not to picture what it could do to a person. To Rebecca.  
  
Rebecca, obviously trying not to think the same thing, was by the river.  
  
"Here's where they moored the barge. And over there," she pointed, "are the cart marks."  
  
"Mmh. A quite heavy cart, I would say. The marks point towards the road to Seville."  
  
"Where they get lost among all the other marks on the road," Rebecca snarled. "Dammit, Phileas, I should have followed that cart!"  
  
"Rebecca, my dear: if you had stayed a second more behind those boxes, you would have been scorched, just as this grass. And you could not get out, be seen, and follow the cart afterwards."  
  
He was right, of course. But that left her at a dead end, depending on whatever Estepa could find about the man in the overcoat. She hated being in the defensive; there had to be some way to trace these people.  
  
Of course, there was one way, but she was very reluctant to take it.  
  
"We have to confront Manuel," she said glumly. "Make him take us to where the weapons are."  
  
Phileas stood up, staring into empty space, his expression deeply unhappy.  
  
"There has to be another explanation for what you saw. There has to. Manuel would never get involved in something like this."  
  
Never. Nunca. Rebecca shook her head.  
  
"Is that what the facts say, or what you want to believe, Phileas?" she said, throwing back at him his words from that horrible mission years ago, in Turkey. She saw him acknowledge the blow and close his eyes in regret. She could not leave things like this.   
  
"I feel the same way. And in fact, what I saw was not so terrible; at least he was not the one trying out that fire thrower. We need to find out who No Neck is. And Leather Coat. They are the key to this affair, and if Estepa cannot give them to us, Manuel will have to."  
  
"Yes." Phileas said, simply. "He will have to."  
  
  
  
  
  
They rode back to the cortijo, discussing plans and strategies, and ways of shielding Don Fernando from what they knew. Their last conversation weighed heavily in Phileas's mind.   
  
"There's someone coming," Rebecca said suddenly, staring ahead. Phileas tensed, his hand going automatically to his pocket before he remembered he wasn't carrying his gun. A glance to Rebecca reassured him; she was armed for them both. Phileas strained his eyes to make out the form of a horseman in the distance. Then he relaxed.  
  
"It's Passepartout."  
  
"How can you tell? He's too far away."  
  
"No one in the world but Passepartout rides a horse like that," Phileas stated flatly. Indeed, the rider seemed to be doing cartwheels more than riding, and the horse zigzagged madly in a desperate and futile attempt to get rid of his burden.   
  
"Look, master!" the valet cried happily, as soon as he was at hearing distance, "I am riding like the Sin-tours!"  
  
"Indeed you are, Passepartout," Phileas said wearily. "What is it? Has something happened?"  
  
"It's Mister Estepa being at the Aurora, master," Passepartout explained. "Carrying many papers and asking to speak to Miss... Mrs. Rebecca as soonly as it can be."  
  
"Gonzalo has a gift for making mistimed entrances," Rebecca growled, and put her horse to a gallop. Phileas restrained 'Preciosa', who wanted to follow.  
  
"Did you finish the analysis of that substance, Passepartout?" he asked his valet. The Frenchman's normally cheerful face sobered up.  
  
"Yes, master. Very nasty thing. It having more benzene than normal coal tar, meaning it takes less heat to make the flame, and fire very hot and sticky."  
  
"Is it very difficult to make?"  
  
"Not much... Ah, Passepartout sees now. You wanting to know the people around who can make this and go and hit them, yes?"  
  
Yes he did. He wanted to hit them, hurt them, soak them in that damned liquid and then light a match, to make up for what could have happened to Rebecca. But, being practical, he was thinking more on the lines of identifying the people that would be involved in the smuggling.  
  
"Let's go to the Aurora," he said, giving 'Preciosa' free rein. Passepartout followed with a cheerful cowboy cry that made both his mount and his master wince.  
  
  
  
Estepa was, in Phileas's opinion, leaning a bit too close to Rebecca while examining the documents he had brought with him. A glance at his wife, however, made him change his train of thought at once. The news was not good.  
  
"Ah, Fogg," Estepa said, obsequiously, and then looked at Rebecca. "Ahem. Maybe we could discuss this later...?"  
  
"We are discussing it now, Gonzalo," Rebecca said, without raising her head, in a hard, clipped voice. "Phileas, you'd better take a look at this."  
  
"But, Miss Fogg, he is not an active agent and..."  
  
"Phileas, I'm afraid Gonzalo has plenty of proof here that Manuel belongs to one of the republican groups," Rebecca said, ignoring him completely. Fogg's face closed up with an almost audible clang, and he bent over the papers.  
  
"There's more," Rebecca said, darkly. "Gonzalo, tell him."  
  
"But he's not..."  
  
"Tell him or I'll break your arm."  
  
"Well... I got new information. Tomorrow evening there's going to be a ball in the Royal Residence. The Queen won't attend, but most of the Crown supporters in Seville will be there." Estepa looked at Fogg's eyes and his face paled. He had to lick his lips before he could go on.  
  
"The republicans are going to burn down the Residence."  
  
  



	7. In which the gentle reader doesn’t quite...

[Cross-posted to SSJV]  
  
Well, here we go again! The story is almost ready, I'm working on the final chapter right now.   
  
You all know that, by default, I'm very grateful to Odensdisir for her thorough and excellent beta-reading, but she gets a special mention on this chapter because she really did an outstanding job, improving the coherence of the chapter no end. I am, as always, grateful and awed by her job.  
  
And now...  
  
*************************  
RITMO ANDALUZ  
  
  
Chapter Seven  
In which the gentle reader doesn't quite learn what happened to Jules Verne on a warm spring afternoon   
  
  
  
  
'Nube' was indeed a wonderful name for the mare, Jules reflected. A cloud. He hadn't felt so comfortable on a horse since his nursery days and 'Étoile', his wooden rocking horse and faithful companion. There was something not of this world in the way the mare walked: a long, smooth stride that made him think that he was on a boat, or gliding sweetly through the sky. Even her trot was stable, as if she hardly touched the ground, and when he dared to go to a brief burst of full gallop, the feeling was so exhilarating that he swore always to ride paso finos from now on, or nothing at all.  
  
Now he had taken 'Nube' out again for a late afternoon stroll with Passepartout. He wanted to think, and although the cortijo was a perfect place to be, it was practically impossible to be alone: everybody was curious about "the English", even if half of the English were French. Besides, Doña Vicenta's daughters, charming and smart as they were, could exhaust Job's patience. Consuelo, the youngest, had fallen deeply and irrevocably in love with Verne and followed him wherever he went, watching him with wide, loving eyes, and giving him small gifts of pretty pebbles and lovesick sighs in equal proportions. Amparo, the eldest, was torn between a giggling infatuation for Verne and a stricken, awed adoration of Fogg, who hadn't even noticed her, which gave the twelve-year-old the perfect excuse to stagger along tragically, behaving as if she was about to die of unrequited love. It was very charming and quite overwhelming, and Verne, fleeing both the girls and the apparently endless number of sparrows that followed him everywhere with an evil intent that would have done justice to the League of Darkness, mounted 'Nube' and rode towards the hills around Seville.   
  
Passepartout was riding a bulky spotted grey Andalusian known as 'Dormilón', Sleepy, because it was the only horse placid enough to withstand the valet's idiosyncratic style of riding. Both were worried about the news about Manuel, so it wasn't exactly a happy ride, but it was soothing and relaxing. Verne let 'Nube' choose the route, and wasn't overly surprised when she made for one of the small ravines that were in the borders of the cortijo lands. It was cooler down there, and there were several small buildings with fountains, and little patches of juicy grass.  
  
"There's someone down there," Passepartout said in French, waking Verne from a gloomy daydream.  
  
"Mmh? Where?"  
  
Passepartout pointed down, to a small adobe building which, as Verne remembered vaguely, was an old pottery hut with a baking oven. Indeed, two people had just gotten out of the hut and mounted two horses laden with rather bulky, and obviously empty, saddlebags. Verne squinted, wishing he had the binoculars Rebecca had given him.  
  
"Who are they?"  
  
"I don't know," Passepartout said, shading his eyes with one hand. "They wear good suits, that's all I can see. I don't think they are from the cortijo."  
  
"What can they want with that hut?" Verne remembered now that the cortijo, during the last century, had supported a small but flourishing pottery business, manufacturing porcelain and ceramic items. After the French invasion in 1808 it had been abandoned, but now Manuel was very enthusiastic about recovering the trade and making again delicate porcelain tableware to sell among the rich people in Seville. He had talked quite a lot about that, as a matter of fact, when he hadn't been talking about the Republic.  
  
"Let's go down," Verne said, and tugged inexpertly at the reins. 'Nube' understood his idea, if not his directions, and made straight for the hut.  
  
"Maybe they are people interested in mister Manuel's pottery business," Passepartout suggested, quite sensibly in fact, and Verne felt a little foolish for having thought those were minions of the League of Darkness looking for... for what? Offensive earthenware? Aggressive uses of soup tureens? The writer shook his head in some exasperation. But, since they were there...  
  
The hut had been almost in ruins, but Manuel had repaired it at least to make it look again like a hut, and not like a rain reservoir. Verne unlatched the flimsy door and went in, followed by a curious Passepartout.  
  
Most of the small space inside was taken by the huge, beehive-shaped oven, made of pale refractary brick and recently whitewashed. It wasn't in use yet, but all the debris had been cleaned from the vents and it was ready to accept the rows of jars and plates into its big maws. There was an aljibe in one corner, a kind of deep sink in which rainwater was collected from the outside. It was half full of glossy brown water now. The rest of the space was taken by a huge pile of broken pieces, mostly jars and bowls, covered with an old, muddy sailcloth. A broken bench by one side awaited repairs, and some cobwebs announced to the world that Manuel was enthusiastic, but not too thorough, in his cleaning projects.  
  
"Doña Vicenta told me the oven is like the old arab ovens," Passepartout said, "not good for porcelain but good for ceramic and clay. I don't think mister Manuel can use this for his big project."  
  
"I doubt it too. The soil here does not have the right elements to make good porcelain. They'll probably have to bring the materials from elsewehere," Verne said absently, peeking under the sailcloth and prodding at the broken, concave pieces with a finger. "What's this?"  
  
"What's what?" Passepartout left his attempts to open the oven door and went to where Verne was. The writer had found a second, smaller heap hidden by the sailcloth. When the valet arrived, Verne was lifting the heavy tarp that covered it.   
  
They both stared for a long, long moment.  
  
"My God," Verne said at last.  
  
  
  
Rebecca had been following Estepa since the man had left the 'Aurora'. She had sent Phileas straight back to the cortijo to keep an eye on Manuel, but she had taken her horse to follow the Spaniard towards, she supposed, Seville. So far Estepa had been too close-mouthed about his contacts in the city for Rebecca's peace of mind, and she had decided that she wanted to see him in his element, so to speak, before confronting him about his professional methods, or lack thereof.  
  
She was disagreeably surprised when Estepa made an abrupt about-face and turned back to the cortijo, taking one of the innumerable trails that crisscrossed the whole countryside. She barely had time to bring Festivo behind an old haystack. Estepa had been riding at a sedate pace, but now he seemed in a hurry, taking a path he obviously knew well. Rebecca waited a prudent period of time and went after him.  
  
  
  
"Those are the things that almost burned Miss Rebecca," Passepartout growled, watching the heap of long, strangely-shaped gourds. Verne's expression was like a storm cloud, his brow furrowed, his face pale. There were at least ten of the devices, and when the writer prodded one, the liquid inside sloshed ominously.  
  
"So this is why Mister Manuel wanted this hut as his personal project," the valet was saying, unhappily. "It is out of the way, it is safe, no one would look for the weapons here... Oh, this is very bad, Jules, so very bad. I liked that boy."  
  
"Passepartout, you must go and bring Rebecca here, or Fogg."  
  
"Yes, let's go."  
  
"No, you go. You'll ride faster on your own. I'd spend more time falling off the horse, paso fino or not. I'll wait for you here."  
  
"But, Jules-"  
  
"Go." Jules waved impatiently with one hand, while the other lifted one of the devices' long and ugly tubes, peering at it with the utmost attention. Passepartout stood a moment there, rigid with indecision, and then made up his mind and bolted for the door and his horse.  
  
"You just stay there, I'll be back soon!" he cried as he left the hut. Verne barely heard him, lost in his examination of the devices. The sound of 'Dormilón''s hooves faded away in the warm, thick afternoon air.  
  
Behind him, unheeded, the door turned slowly on its uneven hinges and latched softly by itself.  
  
  
  
"I have never seen anyone so stubborn," Don Fernando said to Fogg, as the Englishman walked to the fence that limited the training arena, there to take his ruined coat off.  
  
"Are you referring to the mare, or to myself?" Phileas asked with a quick smile, folding the coat carefully and unbuttoning his waistcoat, exposing the blinding whiteness of his shirtfront. Don Fernando looked at the beautiful garment with some sense of pity; if things went the same way as they'd been for the last hour, the shirt would be as ruined as the coat in no time.  
  
"To both," he answered, now looking at 'Pesadilla', who seemed a trifle more settled but obviously ready to throw off her rider until the world ended or she got her way. "I really think that you can take things a bit more slowly, Phileas. She'll be here for you tomorrow."  
  
"These things have to be settled as fast as you can," said Phileas, and Tomás, the oldest and most experienced stable hand Don Fernando had, nodded emphatically. He spoke in his almost incomprehensible southern-accented Spanish, smiling at Fogg, and the Englishman arched an eyebrow.  
  
"He said he thinks you have the... er... the innards to cope with her," said Don Fernando with obvious pleasure. "He says that she's beginning to feel you already."  
  
"Maybe she is. But what I'm feeling, mostly, is the ground," Phileas sighed. He was obscurely pleased by Tomás's praise. The man was about half his height and he looked as though he would be blown away with the next gust of breeze, but when on a horse, he transformed into a Hector, a Lancelot, a Cid. He was the only rider that 'Pesadilla' had half-accepted so far, and although the mare had been responsible for the loss of three fingers of his left hand, Tomás bore her no ill-will, and was ready to sing her praises to everyone within earshot. The best *** horse he'd *** ridden in his whole *** life and no mistake, sir, he'd say, adding ***, *** and *** for good measure. If Mister Fogg had the *** to try, then he'd better be *** sure because this was no *** lady's horse and he could very *** well get hurt, but, on the other *** hand, if Mister Fogg had the ***, he'd be in for the *** best *** ride of his *** life, he added with satisfaction, waving his maimed hand.   
  
Then Fogg mounted 'Pesadilla' again, and when, after about one minute, the mare threw him to the arena's thick layer of ash and soft earth, all the Englishman could say was "***!"  
  
Although riding, (or, rather, trying to ride) 'Pesadilla' was an excellent way of dealing with the helpless rage he'd been building up inside for the last sixteen hours, it was not Fogg's only reason for doing so. The training arena was directly on the way of the cortijo's entrance, so that if Manuel, who at the moment was playing with his nieces, should go out, Fogg would know early enough to look for an excuse to leave (a broken bone seemed a likely one at the moment) and follow him. As things were, he walked slowly back to where 'Pesadilla', dancing prettily on the spot and tossing her mane, watched him with her evil, intelligent eye, challenging him to go and try again. Fogg measured her up and gave her a look of respect mingled with savage, primeval pleasure.  
  
"Let's go again, shall we, milady?" he murmured to her perfect ear. He mounted her, feeling the tension of her muscles and the shifting of her weight, adjusting smoothly to the dance, matching will against will, intelligence against cunning, darkness against darkness. Tomás and Don Fernando watched in silence for a few moments. Then Tomás touched Don Fernando's hand, a gesture unthinkable in any other circumstances, but by now both men were lost in the contemplation of the ancient bonding ritual between man and beast, and the hidalgo didn't mind.  
  
"He's finding her," Tomás said. "He's getting across. I'd never thought anyone would do it so quickly."  
  
"Phileas is a remarkable man in many aspects," Don Fernando said absently, wincing as 'Pesadilla' pulled off a caper that might had broken Fogg's back if he hadn't adjusted to it with the flexibility of a cat, his legs melted to the mare's flanks.  
  
"Do you think he can tame this one?" he asked Tomás. The horse-trainer didn't answer for a long time, watching how 'Pesadilla' threw Fogg off again, the man landing in an awkward half-crouch and mounting again almost immediately, oblivious to the world.  
  
"No," he said at last. "No one can tame her. But maybe he can make a truce. If he has the brains to understand that she is not sweet, she is no innocent. She is not to be trusted, ever."  
  
"Oh," said Don Fernando, "I think he can understand that very well."  
  
  
  
It took Verne a full twenty seconds after Passepartout got out of the hut to realize that something was amiss with these devices. None of them had any kind of ignition mechanism; there was no way to light up the fuel once it was ejected from the mouth of the hose. And a careful examination also revealed that the mechanism that should propel the ignited fuel at the distance Rebecca had described was also absent. Verne sat on the battered table and produced his notebook, sketching the devices as they were, in the hope that the purely mechanical process would give him some insight.  
  
Could these be spares? Unlikely: they would not store them loaded with fuel, for the liquid that filled them was surely naphta, or at least smelled very much like it. Earlier prototypes? Maybe, but there still was no reason to keep them there filled with fuel, and besides, why take the risk of keeping them? They could be found by the police or by innocent bystanders like himself. Verne frowned. There was something here that eluded him. He wished Rebecca was here; she had a mind so much better suited to this kind of business than his was.   
  
So: no ignition, no propelling mechanism. Probably the more delicate and complicated parts of the whole thing, Verne thought, sketching a possible design for the propeller in the margin of his notebook. Could they be stored somewhere else and the whole thing put together later?  
  
No, no, and a thousand times no. Besides, this was an extremely poor choice of a hiding place. Manuel had been too eloquent, if anything, about this hut and his pet pottery project. If he or his associates had chosen this as a caché for weapons, it was a miracle they hadn't been caught yet.  
  
And so few weapons, at that. There were nine devices in the heap. Hardly enough to start the revolt that Estepa dreaded.  
  
That Estepa *said* he dreaded.  
  
Verne had never thought that he was especially intuitive about people; in fact, he had frequently felt that he was remarkably blind to the subtler aspects of human relationships. But Fogg didn't like Estepa, and Rebecca didn't like Estepa, and even Passepartout had a hard time getting out the 'Mister' before Estepa's name, and all that aversion floating around had succeeded in getting into the writer's mind the impression that the agent was not exactly saint material. So, he found himself doubting Estepa's proofs of Manuel's involvement with the extremist republican groups, and by extension, doubting any other thing that Estepa told them about Manuel.  
  
The thought that Manuel could have anything to do with the weapons smuggling business was utterly ridiculous, Verne felt, even while he was looking at a pile of fire-throwers right there in front of him.  
  
Correction: at a pile of gourds full of naphta. They amounted to just that, stripped of the mechanisms that made them into the horrible weapons Rebecca had seen. A strange thing to store, certainly.  
  
In a hut that Manuel, a suspect of belonging to an extremist group, was known to frequent.  
  
Nine gourds. Not nearly enough to start a revolution, certainly enough to provide a respectable amount of fuel.  
  
Only an utter idiot would store these things here. Manuel was not an idiot. Therefore...  
  
The syllogism completed itself in his mind with the searing clarity of lightning. He knew now how Rebecca felt in those moments when she showed a tendency to punch something, or someone, and cry out how blind she'd been.  
  
Stunned by the sheer force of revelation, he stood there, working hypotheses in his mind, checking the facts they knew against his new theory, remembering conversations and key phrases, as blind and deaf to his surroundings as ever he was in the grip of one of his visions.  
  
He never heard the sound of a horse approaching. By the time he heard someone blocking the door from the outside, it was too late.  
  
  
  
Phileas had allowed himself to get completely absorbed in the task at hand. In fact, he could not afford the slightest distraction. 'Pesadilla' was more than a horse; she was a force of Nature. An earthquake, perhaps. Or an avalanche.   
  
But a part of his mind was still focused on the weapons and Manuel; therefore, when his peripheral vision registered the young man riding slowly to the cortijo's entrance, he gave 'Pesadilla' exactly the moment of distraction she craved, and he was flung quite violently to the ground. However, this had the virtue of making Manuel stop.  
  
"Phileas!"  
  
"I'm all right," he said, dusting himself up and rejecting kindly the hand that Tomás was offering. "It was my fault."  
  
"I hope I didn't distract you..."  
  
"No, I was... thinking. Are you going out?"  
  
"To the pottery hut," Manuel nodded, a happy smile on his face. "I want to get everything ready for when the workers come to fix the oven."  
  
"You shouldn't go alone," Phileas said, unable to pinpoint the reason for the uneasy feeling at the pit of his stomach.  
  
"Why on earth not?" Manuel laughed. "I've been going there regularly for the last two weeks, Phileas. It's right into the cortijo's land, and no one is really interested in that little ruined hut, anyway. Well, not yet." He winked and smiled again, and Phileas was about to suggest that he go with him, dirty shirt and all, when a horse entered the cortijo at a full gallop. A second later, Passepartout emerged from under the animal's body, clinging to its mane, the saddle quite loose. The cinch had broken somewhere along the mad ride.  
  
"My God!" Manuel restrained his horse expertly, while at the same time stopping 'Dormilón' by blocking his path. Passepartout regained some stability and jumped to the ground, disregarding horse, saddle and his waistcoat, torn and hanging from just one shoulder.  
  
"Master, master!"  
  
"Passepartout, what is it? What? Breathe, man! Steady now, there's a good chap. Breathe in again now, very good, that's it... Now, what happened?"   
  
Passepartout recovered his breath and part of his wits. "It's... It's master Jules, master. He being at the potting hut. He finding," with a sidelong glance at Manuel, "he finding something interesting, he said you should be seeing it fastly."  
  
"It must be something very interesting indeed," said Manuel with an amused look, "for you to risk breaking your neck in such a ride."  
  
"Verne has a very, eh... drastic approach to interesting things," Phileas said a bit at random, reading more than urgency in his valet's brown eyes. "He is, um, very vehement about these things. If you will excuse me now. Passepartout, come with me, I look like a beggar."  
  
"But, master..."   
  
"Come with me, I said."  
  
They retired discreetly behind the stables, and Phileas made a show of dusting his shirt. Passepartout helped him, automatically.  
  
"Now," the Englishman said, speaking quickly. "Tell me everything, fast."  
  
Passepartout did, and Phileas's eyes burned.  
  
"Manuel was just on his way there," he said when the valet finished his somewhat confused account.  
  
"Yes, this is bad. I was liking him, very much, Master."  
  
"No, Passepartout, you don't understand. Manuel was openly going there. Has been doing it for weeks. This is not his plan. This is a plain ambush, a trap."  
  
The valet's eyes opened in surprise, then in alarm.  
  
"But then... Master Jules..."  
  
Fogg was already running back to the arena. Manuel was still there, being rebuked by his father for blasphemy.  
  
"Go to the 'Aurora', reinflate her and bring her there as fast as you can!" he shouted to Passepartout over his shoulder. Then he reached both men.   
  
"Don Fernando, my excuses. Manuel, I beg you, most earnestly, to stay in the cortijo for now. I'll explain later."  
  
"Phileas, what...?", but Fogg had already entered back into the arena, where 'Pesadilla' looked at him with an evil glint in her eye.  
  
"I need you now," he muttered fiercely as he mounted her. "All you have, I want."  
  
A second later a dark, sleek form jumped the fence impeccably and the mare darted off as a black wind, leaving behind three very confused men and a running valet.  
  
  
  
'Pesadilla' did like the full gallop at first. She was fast, Phileas realized with some part of his mind not busy plotting the shortest route to the hut. Fast and sure-footed, her powerful muscles stretching efortlessly under his legs. However, she didn't like his choice of path, the shortcut across hills instead of the easy surface of the main road, and she fought him with all her will and all her tricks.  
  
But Phileas was having none of that. This was not a show for pleasure, for the purely platonic confrontation of wills. The mare had the speed Fogg needed now with desperation, and he was going to get all that speed, and get it the way he wanted. Maybe some of his fury and his urgency got transmitted via his long hands, clenched on the reins, or his legs, pressed against the mare's sides. 'Pesadilla' realized that she had on her back a kindred spirit, a soul as fierce and in turmoil as hers, and she changed her rhythm ever so slightly, adapting to his rider, letting him take his rightful part in the ride. The breakneck pace turned suddenly into a smooth, eerie glide, rider and mount fused into a fantastic centaur that flew across the country like news of doom.   
  
Phileas noticed the change and he smiled, like a predator. Amidst the terrible fear for Verne that gripped him, he let out a dry, dangerous laugh, utterly mirthless. 'Pesadilla' heard it, acknowledged it, and answered stretching out flat against the countryside that passed under them like a blurred watercolor.   
  
They were nearly there. They crested the last hill.  
  
And saw the hut.  
  
Phileas let out a terrible cry, a roar of anger, of frustration, of pain, of utter negation of the evidence of his eyes: for he was too late  
  
The hut was burning like a torch.  
  
  
  
*** End of Chapter Seven *** 


	8. In which a confrontation ends in an unor...

[Crossposted to the SciFi Board]  
  
Hi all!  
  
Odensdisir has been, once again, a fast and efficient beta, and Susan has provided an excellent and gallant example relieving us from the cliffhanger she had left us in yesterday, so I'm posting Chapter Eight a bit ahead of schedule, with my apologies to DV ;-)  
I hope that Chapter Nine will be ready soon, but be patient for a while, I don't have much time during the week. Thanks all for your feedback! You've made me very happy this weekend (big grin).  
  
And now, Chapter Eight...  
  
  
********************  
RITMO ANDALUZ  
  
Chapter Eight  
In which a confrontation ends in an unorthodox manner  
  
  
  
Phileas perceived things in his peripheral vision - movement, a riderless horse, a gust of breeze that made the flames going through the tiny window in the hut blaze and roar- but his brain didn't really register any of them. He set 'Pesadilla' down the almost-vertical slope, he jumped from the saddle, he managed to fall on his feet, running, and he stopped for the briefest instant when the heat from the flames hit him like a hammer.  
  
"Verne!" he roared, backing up involuntarily, hoping that Verne had gotten out in time, hoping that the reason his horse was nearby but Verne wasn't was _not_ that he had been inside the hut. _He's not in there. Please God. Not Jules_.  
  
Phileas had to know, and yes, it was foolish. But he had to know, and he closed his eyes and ran towards the hut, bracing himself to hit the door, when a bump came from the other side of the wooden panel. Surprise made Phileas stop, and then his wits gave him a hint.  
  
It was _Verne_ trapped there. Verne could think the impossible and do the unthinkable, and it was a matter of half a second for a suddenly hopeful Phileas to reach the door, realize that the latch had been jammed from the outside, and unlatch it. He burnt his hand but didn't feel it.  
  
He opened the door, already burning along one edge, and suddenly a fiery missile impacted against him and hit him hard in the head with an odd clunking sound. Phileas's reflexes took over: he absorbed the shock, recoiled, rolled in the dust to extinguish the flames, and blinked to clear his vision.  
  
A heap of brown, smoking cloth moved weakly under the slanting sun. One of its ends was a... a ceramic pot? Phileas crawled to it on hands and knees and threw the cloth aside, dislodging the pot in the process. Verne lay there, panting and choking, his face and hands burned and his clothes already smoking under the pot that he had been wearing as a sort of bizarre helmet and the tarp he had been wearing as a cloak. Phileas felt it and found it had been hastily rubbed with wet mud to form some kind of very transient protective layer.  
  
He took the young writer in his arms and looked for injuries. Verne was still wheezing and coughing, but alive, oh, so alive, thank goodness. Alive, thinking, and never losing hope. Phileas found himself smiling in spite of his worry for his young friend.  
  
  
"It's all right, Verne, it's all right now, rest easy, old chap," he babbled, still shaky, "Just breathe. You are all right."  
  
"F-Fogg," Verne mouthed, between fits of coughing. "How...?"  
  
"Later. Let us get further away from the fire, shall we?"  
  
Verne nodded, but he was barely able to walk. Phileas dragged him to a small group of willows and let him sit there, propped against one of the trunks, checking him more thoroughly for injuries. The burns on his hands did not appear too serious. His face was red and his eyebrows had disappeared, but other than that his eyesight didn't seem to have been damaged; still, Phileas very much wanted to see him someplace safe. He tried to estimate how much longer it would take for Passepartout to reinflate the 'Aurora' and bring it here. Not long now.   
  
"I'll find you some water, don't move now."  
  
"Fogg... 'twas a trap... gourds..." Verne rasped, with a voice like broken glass.  
  
"I know. I know, Verne. It was meant for Manuel. Let me get you some water, now."  
  
He remembered the small brook that ran a few yards away from the hut and ran there. Collecting some water in a rolled-up leaf, he brought it it to Verne, who imbibed it eagerly, and seemed to breathe more easily.   
  
"There were just gourds there," the writer said in a labored gasp. "I heard someone tampering with the door, and then the window, fire..."  
  
"This cannot have been long ago," Phileas said, his brain finally starting to sort through all the possible scenarios and remembering, belatedly, that he had seen something, or someone, moving near the hut.   
  
And he was not armed.  
  
"I... I really don't know," Verne said, blinking. He looked around and seemed to realize, with some surprise, that it was still the same day. Phileas recognized the look: in a moment the writer would start realizing that it was the same world too.  
  
"Let's get you back to the cortijo," Phileas suggested vaguely, scanning his surroundings and trying to remember exactly which were the closest paths and roads.  
  
"No... Fogg, for the trap to be effective," Verne coughed, swallowed, closed his eyes, "they have to come and raise the alarm. Stage the story. They'll come back."  
  
Damn the man, Phileas thought, amusement mixing with exasperation. He almost gets roasted alive, and still he thinks better and faster than anyone I've ever seen, except maybe Rebecca.  
  
"Verne, I am -," he began, and then stopped.   
  
A horse was coming, fast.  
  
The word was 'unarmed', Phileas thought as he stepped in front of Verne protectively and looked ahead. The rider was bulky, far bulkier than Rebecca. And he had seen that chestnut somewhere...  
  
"Estepa." Phileas muttered, still thinking. Estepa went straight ahead for the hut, apparently in genuine distress. Phileas got closer.  
  
"Estepa!" he called, and the Spaniard turned a pale face towards him.  
  
"Fogg?" his mouth worked without sound for a moment, and then he recovered, "Fogg, my God, it's horrible! I had intelligence about Manuel becoming a liability for the group, they talked about using him to divert suspicions from the police... I came to warn him, but I had no idea they were going to... Oh, this is horrible, horrible, the poor boy! I came here as fast as I could..."  
  
Fogg, his face stony, took a step to one side and Estepa saw the sitting figure of Verne. Even at this distance, it was impossible to mistake him for Manuel.  
  
"Wha - Who...? Monsieur Verne?"  
  
"Monsieur Verne, yes, Estepa," Fogg said, in a low, extremely civilized tone of voice. "And pray tell, where did you get that intelligence, may I ask?"  
  
"Yes, Gonzalo, do tell," said a voice behind the Spaniard. Fogg greeted the timely arrival of his wife with a raised eyebrow and Estepa almost jumped out of his skin.   
  
"As far as I can tell," she said, stopping her horse a few paces from the two men and sliding to the ground, graceful as a cat, "you got your intelligence from two men mounted on horses with big, empty saddlebags. You were certainly not in Seville," she added helpfully. The fire from the hut matched her hair against the royal blue of the evening sky.  
  
"Well, of course I didn't... I mean, they were informants..."  
  
"They were your accomplices." If Rebecca's hair was the fire, Fogg's voice was the smoke: dark, silky, and dangerous. He was barely two paces away from Estepa now.  
  
"And Manuel was going to be your scapegoat," Rebecca supplied, watching the two men with a calculating gaze while walking in a slow arc towards Verne. Fogg caught the worried glance she shot towards the writer.  
  
"He's all right," Phileas said softly. "A bit singed, that's all."  
  
"Look, Miss Fogg, I don't know what..."  
  
"I believe you were talking to my husband, Gonzalo," Rebecca said, pleasantly. "Please continue to do so. I'm not sure I could talk to you now without choking."  
  
"Fogg, tell her she's ..."  
  
"What, Estepa? She's _what_?" Fogg asked, with all the friendliness of an enraged cobra. "Hysterical? Overreacting? Ridiculous? What would be your excuse this time?"  
  
"Maybe something like 'with all due respect, Miss Fogg, I'm much more familiar with the language'" Rebecca interjected smoothly. "See, I finally figured it out, Gonzalo. I'm not that dense. You did a very good job of feeding us half-truths mixed with the lies, oh, yes."  
  
"But you got a bit heavy-handed in the end, trying to kill _my friend_," Fogg said, and there was absolutely no warmth in his voice now. "You sniveling traitorous oily coward."  
  
Estepa paled.  
  
"Be careful, Fogg..."  
  
"Or _what_? You will _lie_ to me?" Fogg turned his back to the man and walked to where Rebecca was helping Verne get to his mare. Behind him, Estepa let his breath out in a nervous hiss and Verne tried to shout a warning. Rebecca tensed, but didn't move. A slight smile played on her lips.  
  
When Estepa lunged forward Fogg was already turning. The vicious blade aimed at his back missed completely. Estepa was caught off balance, and Fogg sidestepped him neatly. The Spaniard was armed with one of those long, awful jackknives that could be found almost everywhere in the country, with a blade a handspan long. He held it now in a trembling hand, but did not surrender it.  
  
"You aren't even good at backstabbing, Estepa," Fogg hissed, confronting him. Verne looked at Rebecca. Fogg had no weapons and no way of shielding himself, how could she look at this so... detachedly?  
  
"Rebecca, he's defenseless!"  
  
"No, he's not, Jules," Rebecca said, reassuringly. "However..." She reached out to Nube's saddle and picked the serviceable and sturdy walking stick that Jules carried there. "Phileas!"  
  
Fogg caught the stick one-handed while avoiding a second stab, and felt quite relieved by its weight. He could take Estepa, even unarmed, but he had some previous experience with those knives; the scar that he still carried after all these years reminded him that overconfidence would not do. Estepa was a coward, but he fought with the desperation of a cornered rat. The stick gave Fogg distance and reach. He used both things to their fullest advantage.  
  
Verne was getting frantic. Why wasn't Rebecca helping Fogg? The man was armed with a stick, and he was facing a long, ugly, _pointy_ knife, for heaven's sake! Her husband!   
  
"Rebecca, I'm all right, help Fogg..."  
  
"Hush, Jules. I am."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I _am_ helping him. By not interfering," Rebecca smiled. She had discovered, not long ago, an unexpected pleasure of marriage: she could watch Phileas do what was, strictly speaking, her job, and consider it her doing too. Phileas needed to vent some tension, anyway. And she was curious.  
  
"How can you say... Oh."  
  
Estepa was on the ground, and Fogg had the knife in his hand, pressed against the agent's throat. Fogg's face was absolutely white, his eyes huge and empty.  
  
"Panicking was a bad move, Estepa," he said coldly. "You could have lied a bit more. You seem to have quite a knack for it."  
  
"F-Fogg, I didn't- I never..." Estepa shut up when the blade drew a thin line of blood across the side of his throat.  
  
"That tongue of yours is going to get you into trouble someday," Fogg said. The knife did not budge, and Verne blinked in some concern.   
  
"What is he doing?" he whispered. Rebecca narrowed her eyes but didn't move, and for the first time Verne thought that Fogg was actually going to kill Estepa. He started to say something but Rebecca's hand on his arm stopped him with a steely grip.  
  
"Not a word, Jules. Not a word."  
  
"But he's going to..."  
  
"Hush."  
  
Fogg leaned over Estepa's terrified face.  
  
"You tried to frame Manuel Villares for your filthy little weapons smuggling," he hissed. "You were ready to bring grief and dishonor to the best family I have ever known. You were willing to ruin the lives of people that never caused you any harm and only offered you friendship and hospitality. You lied to my _wife_ and almost got her killed. And you tried to kill _my friend_. You are the lowest, most despicable excuse for a human being that I have ever seen, Gonzalo Estepa. You are a disgrace to us all."  
  
  
The knife pressed a bit more. Estepa closed his eyes. Rebecca watched, lips parted, eyes glued to his husband.  
  
Fogg's left hand went into his pocket.   
  
"And that is why," he said, "I'm doing this."  
  
"Fogg, don't!" Verne's voice carried through to the two men, but Fogg didn't seem to notice. His left hand came out and something was stuffed into Estepa's waistcoat pocket. The knife retreated. Fogg took a step backwards.  
  
"There are five hundred pounds there," he said in a normal, almost kind voice. "Run."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I may change my mind at any moment. Run."  
  
Estepa took the wad of bank notes from his pocket, looked at them incredulously, looked at Fogg, looked at the money again. He was gaping like a singularly unattractive fish. Fogg's hand, still holding the knife, twitched. Estepa saw it and a second later he was going away at a respectable gallop.  
  
"Ah, well. That's that," Fogg muttered as Rebecca and Verne joined him. For a moment he exchanged a glance with the writer. The younger man's eyes were wide, worried, a little scared, and also a little challenging. Fogg's eyes were absolutely expressionless.  
  
"Let's get Verne back to the cortijo," Rebecca said.  
  
"What about those two men with the big saddlebags?" Fogg asked, blinking now tiredly and flexing his burned hand.  
  
"Really, Phileas... Why do you think I came a trifle late?"  
  
Fogg laughed, mirthlessly. He looked away, in the direction in which Estepa had fled. Then he looked again at Rebecca, and she nodded, once.   
  
"It will pose no problem," she said, looking serious. Fogg sighed and took her hand, caressing it absently. He didn't look happy.  
  
"But Fogg, you let him escape!" Verne said suddenly. "You let Estepa get away!"  
  
"I did not, Verne."  
  
"What? I saw you!"  
  
"Believe me: he has not escaped." Fogg said obscurely. His eyes stopped any further comment, at least for the moment. He turned and went to take 'Pesadilla''s reins. It was a tribute to the mare's courage that she had stayed near the fire, and he felt a surge of affection for the magnificent animal. He patted her on the neck and 'Pesadilla' tried to bite his hand off. Fogg chuckled.  
  
"Back to your old tricks, are you, my girl?" he said, feeling the nervous tugs she gave to the reins in his unhurt hand. "It's all right. We will have time to discuss this later." He tethered her a bit away from 'Festivo' and 'Nube', and then heard a deep, throbbing sound. He looked up in alarm to the rapidly darkening sky, now the color of a bruise, and then smiled.  
  
The 'Aurora' hovered above them, glowing gold against the sky, with an anxious Passepartout looking out and making extravagant gestures with his hands that could mean anything, from happiness about seeing them all safe and sound to a desire to strangle the smoke that was rising towards him from the hut. Rebecca also looked up and smiled broadly for the first time that evening.  
  
"My dear Phil, you are a very thoughtful man. Come on, let's go up. You can drop me on Seville after we leave Verne in the good hands of Doña Vicenta."  
  
"I'm all right, Rebecca, just go and..." Verne began heroically, and then spoiled it all with a huge fit of coughing that left him helpless in the arms of his friends.  
  
"Come on, Jules," Rebecca said, kindly. "Let's get you up to the 'Aurora'. Besides, I need to know exactly what happened inside that hut before I... run some errands."  
  
  
*** End of Chapter Eight *** 


	9. In which lies and truths fly around and ...

RITMO ANDALUZ  
  
Chapter Nine  
_In which lies and truths fly around and manage to confuse everyone but Passepartout_  
  
  
"So, well, I thought if I could just hold off the flames for a while, I'd try and break the door open," Verne explained to a still confused Passepartout and a very serious Rebecca. "I rubbed the tarp with mud; the water would evaporate first, giving me some time before the heat would burn me, and..." Faltering, Verne looked down at the sheets of Passepartout's bed, where he had been brought. "It sounds silly, now."   
  
"It was very good idea, the pot," Passepartout said, and Rebecca nodded wordlessly from her chair by the bed. "To stop the heat, and the fires to the head."  
  
"It could only work for a very limited time," Verne said, "but at least I'd be mobile and able to do something..."  
  
"What," Fogg asked from his position, leaning against the wall by the door, "would you have done after that, if you couldn't have gotten out?" His tone was of genuine curiosity.  
  
"There was the kiln," Verne frowned, "refractory enough, I guess, if a tight fit. Or the aljibe...I could get under the water. But I could only be in either of those for a very short time before I'd suffocate or drown. I was thinking, maybe I could have piled up enough fuel by the door, try to burn it very quickly, wait under the water, then get out and try to break it again..."  
  
Fogg chuckled.   
  
"This not funny, master!" Passepartout said, shocked. Fogg was still dressed in the filthy, sooty shirt. His face was smudged with dirt and sweat, and now, laughing softly, he didn't look completely sane.  
  
"Ah, Passepartout, but it is," he said, watching Verne with bright eyes. "You have no idea of how glad I am that it was you inside the hut instead of Manuel, Verne."  
  
"Master!"   
  
Ignoring Passepartout's outraged stare, Fogg limped forward until he was next to the writer.  
  
"Manuel would be dead now. You, Verne, are the only person in the world who could have survived that, and come out of it kicking, thinking and fighting. No one else. Not me, not Rebecca, no one. And having said this, try not to let yourself get locked inside any more burning huts, would you? I don't care to repeat the experience, ever again."  
  
"I - I'll try," Verne stammered. It was probably just exhaustion that made Fogg's eyes blink a bit too rapidly; but the praise was double-edged, very Fogg-like. He looked at the not-so-neat-anymore gentleman. "You saved my life," he said, awkwardly.  
  
"I sincerely doubt it," Fogg said, but he took the hand that Verne had extended towards him.  
  
"Thank you," Verne said, and saw Fogg flinch slightly when he squeezed the hand. The Englishman's expression didn't change, however, and he withdrew his hand smoothly.   
  
"Don't mention it," Fogg replied; and turned to Passepartout. "Passepartout, if you are finished here, I'd like your assistance in the main cabin for a moment." He glanced at his wife, who had been all this time frowning, deep in thought. "Rebecca, we'll drop you in Seville and then we'll take Verne to the cortijo. I trust you'll make your own arrangements for the return?"  
  
"Yes. I'll probably need to spend the night there anyway," Rebecca said absently. Fogg didn't look too happy at the prospect, but he didn't say anything; instead, he disappeared through the door along with Passepartout.   
  
Rebecca gave Verne a somewhat wan smile. "Well, Jules, try to rest now. It's all quite over."  
  
"Yes, but... Rebecca, may I ask you a question?"  
  
"Certainly." Rebecca rose from her chair and sat down on the bed. "What is it?"  
  
"When Fogg was... You knew he wasn't going to kill Estepa, right? That's why you didn't intervene. You knew."  
  
Rebecca didn't answer for a long, long time, and Jules swallowed nervously.  
  
"I didn't know, Jules," she said at last. "It could have gone either way. I honestly didn't know."  
  
"But you would have stopped him. If you thought he was going to kill Estepa." There was a faint begging note in the writer's voice, but Rebecca's eyes were as informative as a sphinx's.  
  
"I would not."  
  
"What?" Jules watched her face, and, not for the first time, had to ask himself who was this woman whom he thought he knew.  
  
"But it wouldn't have mattered. Estepa is as good as dead," she said at last, in a hard voice.  
  
"What do you mean? Fogg gave him money, he didn't..."  
  
"Phileas _killed_ him with that money, Jules. Estepa will try to leave the country. But his associates will find him. With a fair amount of foreign money on him and no weapons to deliver. Estepa has nowhere to hide now."  
  
"How do you know that?"  
  
"Why do you think I'm going to Seville, Jules? To visit the Cathedral?" Rebecca said, her mouth set and her eyes hard. Verne didn't reply.  
  
"The two men who put those gourds in the hut told me a number of things. I'm going to Seville to tell those things to the Spanish police. And then I'm going to drop some subtle little hints about how Estepa betrayed the smugglers for money and now he's trying to flee. The police will make sure that he's not disturbed, as if he had official permission to get out of the country. That will only confirm to the smugglers what they already suspect."  
  
"So he..."  
  
"Will be killed by his own associates. That way there's no detention order, the Spanish government doesn't need to involve itself, the British Secret Service is not involved either, and everything is taken care of efficiently and without inconvenient official paperwork. And once we've made sure that the Service is not going to be involved in any way, the Spanish government can take care of the smugglers publicly. Chatsworth will be very pleased; our reputation will be safe," she said bitterly.  
  
Verne averted his eyes. He had seen death. He had delivered death. But it had all been in the heat of battle, when it had been a matter of kill or die. This cold, deliberate scheme to destroy one man to serve the purposes of secrecy sickened him. He felt Rebecca standing up, but he could not look at her.   
  
"Jules, I...," she began and then stopped. Jules heard her leaving the room. The soft sound that he heard before she left could have been a murmur, a whispered "I'm sorry." But he really couldn't tell.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *   
  
There were few words exchanged in the main cabin before Rebecca left the ship, and even fewer afterwards. Passepartout cleaned and bandaged Fogg's hand, helped him change, and set the decanter on the table. Fogg was perfectly aware of what Rebecca was going to do and the thought hung around him like a dark cloud. He didn't feel sorry for Estepa, but for Rebecca: yet another dent on her armor, another piece of integrity chipped away and sacrificed on the altar of politics. He had lost himself that way. And so had his father. And now he was utterly powerless to stop Rebecca from losing herself in precisely the same manner. Love was not a shield; it was only a mud-covered cloth against the flames.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *   
  
Reality intruded into Fogg's brown study in the form of a very upset Villares household. The arrival of the 'Aurora', glowing gold against the night sky, was enough to attract every person within the walls of the cortijo. The appearance of Verne, eyebrowless, bandaged and faltering, was an utter shock. Everybody rushed to help the writer and tugged at him from every direction, putting him in the gravest danger he'd faced so far, until Passepartout shouted some Spanish words that had the magical effect of making everyone disappear; Verne was left alone, swaying and pale. The valet whisked his friend away, followed by a very concerned Doña Vicenta and her two daughters --who were nearly out of themselves with excited horror. This left Fogg alone, facing a terrified Manuel and a very stern Don Fernando. Fogg wished with all his heart that he possessed Rebecca's gift for improvisation in the face of danger, and maybe marriage really was some kind of strange infectious disease, because an explanation came readily to his lips.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *   
  
"You told them it was an accident with the kiln?" Verne asked, incredulously. They were in his room. Passepartout had brought a snack from the kitchen, and being Doña Vicenta's kitchen, the snack was a small feast of fresh bread, butter, honey, figs, apricots, cured cheese, dry sausage, olives and ham. Even Fogg was nibbling a piece of cheese, although he had told Passepartout he didn't want anything.  
  
"I didn't know what else to say," Fogg said, a shade defensively. "I told them you were pottering about -don't look at me like that, Verne, you hardly do anything else, after all-, and something went wrong. I'm no engineer. You can tell them later that it was the gasketed tubing of the widdershins valve or whatever nonsense you manage to invent. It was all I could do to stop Manuel from dropping on his knees and confessing everything there and then."  
  
"Stopping him?"  
  
"Why, of course! I don't want the boy to muddle everything up and get himself in even bigger trouble. If we can salvage something from all this unfortunate situation, I want it to be the Villares family. I'll talk to him tomorrow. With any luck, we'll keep him and his family away from any public inquiry."  
  
"Privilege of the rich?" Verne said, and regretted it immediately. He was still shaken by his conversation with Rebecca. "I'm sorry Fogg, I didn't mean that. I..."  
  
"I will certainly try to use some of the privileges of the rich, yes." Fogg said, unruffled, after a pause that had been a bit too long for comfort.   
  
"I apologize, Fogg. I don't know why... Sometimes I just..."  
  
"It's all right, Verne," Fogg said, not unkindly, and patted the writer lightly on the shoulder. "I know what you mean."  
  
"I like this family. I wouldn't want them to suffer, I..."  
  
"I know. And it's all right. Don't give it another thought. I'll leave you now; you need to rest."  
  
Fogg left. Verne was still blushing crimson.  
  
"That was very stupid of me," the writer said. Passepartout smiled at him.  
  
"Not stupid, just very Jules of you. I'm understanding what you say. The other men, the others on Manuel's group, they will be in trouble. Manuel can escape because his father is rich and respecting. Not fair. But Manuel is the nice boy, we all like him, so, where's the point in the middle that makes it right?"  
  
"It's just that..."  
  
"We change the world, one bit each day," Passepartout said, "not all at the same time, then we topple and stumble and make things worse. Just one bit. And Manuel will learn after this. Maybe is better, maybe it's not. We don't know. But Mister Fogg, him unhappy. We want him happy, yes? We want him to feel that the danger and the pain and the fear for you and for Miss Rebecca give something good at the end. A happy family... A happy family is something very, very, very important to my master, Jules. This I know."  
  
Passepartout took the tray and left, and Jules laid back on the bed and thought.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *   
  
Rebecca arrived at dawn, bringing with her the horses they had left at the hut. Now that the animals found themselves in a familiar place, they lost some of the exhaustion that had kept them manageable. 'Festivo' and 'Nube' protested a little before settling down, but it took three men to put a very angry 'Pesadilla' back in the stable, and a great deal of courage to take the saddle off and rub her down.   
  
Fogg had been waiting for his wife, an untouched cup of tea in front of him. When she appeared, looking tired and unhappy, he stood up, made her sit down, and started rubbing her shoulders with his good hand, softly, without a word. Rebecca sighed and leaned back against him.  
  
"It went well," she said at last. His hand stopped briefly and then resumed the massage. "The smugglers are led by Christiansen, of all people, you remember him?"  
  
"South Africa."  
  
"Yes. Fell on a bit of hard times, apparently. Of course, there was never any plan of attacking the Residence tonight. That was just Estepa's attempt to force my hand against Manuel and divert suspicions from him. Christiansen still has a respectable number of weapons to be delivered. They were stocking up."  
  
"Who is he working for?"  
  
Rebecca didn't answer immediately. Fogg felt her muscles tense again and he sighed softly, sadly.  
  
"Oh."  
  
"We are not sure. It may even be French Guyana. But we cannot rule out the French government."  
  
"Are you going to tell him?"  
  
"Not if I can avoid it. It would serve no purpose." She purred when Fogg's hand went down her spine, under the tight leather suit. "I'll leave the politics to Chatsworth and the people at Whitehall. Just one more of those ugly deals that are solved under the table. I don't want to hurt Jules." , she added to herself, and tried to concentrate on what Fogg's hands were doing. It wasn't hard.  
  
"And Estepa?"  
  
"He's panicked. He never could react well under stress, he needs peace and quiet to plot his little greedy plans. So he's going south, looking for a ship. The police are going to let him get as far as Cádiz. But Christiansen's men are already on his trail. I doubt he'll ever get halfway there."  
  
Fogg said nothing. There was nothing to say.  
  
"I've given word to the Embassy. Maberley is there; he's a good man, he'll take care of everything. How are things here?"  
  
"Quite hectic. I've stopped Manuel from telling everything to his father. I want to talk to him first."  
  
"Does he realize that he was going to be Estepa's scapegoat?"  
  
"Not yet. He will figure it out eventually, but I want to explain it to him tomorrow. If he had gone to the hut..."  
  
"... Estepa would have given the Spanish police a nice tale: a pile of useless junk as the fearsome weapons, a corpse as the tragically misled rich boy who got carried away by his ideals, and a false sense of security. They would have believed that there were no more weapons, no one would look for the smugglers anymore, and Christiansen would have been free to continue with his little enterprise."  
  
"Yes. But thanks to you," Fogg said, kissing lightly the top of her head, "all that is averted now."  
  
"Yes. It is," she said fiercely, and then she turned to him and smiled. Fogg had to smile back. Rebecca was not like him; she would not mope about for days or let herself be crushed by the weight of the dark thoughts that this mission had brought. She would bounce back and embrace life with both hands. And he would embrace her in turn and let himself be pulled away from the darkness by her strength.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *   
  
After a short nap, Rebecca went to see Jules. She found him sitting upright in bed with an expression of extreme suffering in his face.  
  
"Jules! What's wrong?"  
  
"Amparo thought that I needed some cheering up," Jules said morosely, as if that were an explanation. Only then Rebecca noticed the liquid warble of a canary, singing with extreme gusto and amazing volume in a small wire cage by the window.  
  
"He's been doing that since before dawn!" Jules almost wailed. "Rebecca, I swear, if you don't make him stop, I'm going to throw him out the window! Or maybe I'll throw myself. He's quite likely to escape and fly back here to nest right into my ear."  
  
"There, there, Jules," Rebecca laughed, and threw her shawl over the cage. The canary chirped a couple of times in utter confusion and then fell silent. Verne watched her in wonder.  
  
"It was that easy?" he asked incredulously. His face, without eyebrows, looked more boyish and innocent than was humanly possible.  
  
"It was that easy. Maybe you should take an interest in ornithology, Jules. I believe it'll help you with your little problem. Know thine enemy and all that."  
  
"Hm. Maybe I will." In the silence that ensued, the little scene of the night before crept into the minds of them both, and Jules cleared his throat nervously. Rebecca, however, appeared perfectly calm and cheerful.  
  
"Are you well enough to get up and have lunch with the family today, Jules? I believe Doña Vicenta is preparing a special dish called 'paella'. Passepartout swears by it; he says it's the most delicious thing you can make with rice."  
  
"I'd be glad to."  
  
"I think everyone wants us to forget this unhappy... accident and enjoy the rest of our stay here. Or would you prefer to go back? I certainly would understand."  
  
"Not at all. If... everything... is over, I'd very much like to stay and visit Seville and, well, enjoy myself."  
  
"I'm glad you think that way. Phileas does, too. And Passepartout is rather looking forward to learning the flamenco dance."  
  
"And, ahem, where is Fogg today?"  
  
Rebecca looked out the window and smiled slightly.  
  
"Well, he is just now coming from a little walk with Manuel."  
  
Jules strained his neck to look out the window too. Indeed, there was Fogg, immaculately dressed in an extremely elegant grey suit, walking beside a very pale Manuel, who looked quite shaken and unsteady on his feet.  
  
"I believe Phileas has apprised Manuel of his, um, situation in this matter," Rebecca said.  
  
"What will happen to him now?"  
  
"I expect that Phileas has told Manuel how he was going to be used as the scapegoat for Estepa and the smugglers. And now Manuel knows that his relationship with the Republicans is known. The police could detain him, but Phileas will make sure that they won't. Of course, that'll only happen if Manuel tells everything to his father. It's not going to be easy for the lad, but it's going to be better than a public inquiry."  
  
"Yes. Yes, indeed. But, you...?"  
  
"My status as an agent hasn't been compromised. The report will get a little long, but I think Chatsworth will quite like it."  
  
"And so it ends."  
  
"And so it ends." A little concern still peered out of Rebecca's eyes when she looked at Jules. "Will you be all right? Really?"  
  
She was not talking about him getting out of bed. Jules nodded.   
  
"Yes," he said. "Yes, I will be all right, Rebecca."  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *   
  
Doña Vicenta had put together a feast that would have done justice to the glory days of Al-Andalus. A table had been set on the patio, surrounded by the trees and the cool burbling of the fountain, and laden with all the delicacies that the cortijo could provide. There were grapes and oranges, watermelon, apricots, peaches and figs, warm bread, pickled olives, fresh fish fried or stewed with onions and herbs, and garnished with aromatic lemons and sprigs of parsley. There was velvety red wine and cool Jerez wine, and grapefruit juice for the girls. The paella was a golden triumph of rice and vegetables and tender chicken meat, slightly touched by the wonderful scent of rosemary. Cheese and spicy sausages shared the table with toasted almonds, hearts of artichoke and fresh fava beans. Huge bowls of salad looked like miniature forests of tender green, enhanced by the rich red of the most aromatic tomatoes, sprinkled with a pearly cascade of garlic slices.  
  
The day was perfect too: sunny and warm, with a light as clear as water and as sweet as honey. All colors seemed new, all sounds seemed like crystal. Verne flinched but twice at the chirping of some inquisitive sparrows in search of crumbs.  
  
It was impossible not to fall prey to gluttony in front of such a culinary masterpiece. Even Fogg, normally a light eater, kept anointing warm slices of bread with olive oil and salt and chewing them happily. Manuel, who at first was looking quite ill, managed to recover enough to eat a plateful of paella, and if Fogg encouraged him to drink perhaps a tad more than it would have been advisable, at least that gave the young man the courage to go to his father and whisper something in his ear. Don Fernando looked surprised and then a little worried, and eventually he excused himself and went with his son into the house. Fogg watched the two of them disappear with a slight frown.  
  
"Don't worry," Rebecca said, putting a hand on his arm. "They'll be fine." Her eyes were bright, she was smiling, and there was a drop of peach juice threatening to fall off the corner of her lip. Fogg averted the disaster with a kiss, rejoicing in the freedom of kissing his Rebecca, his wife, in front of God and men. When he pulled back, her smile dazzled him. She put a grape in her mouth. They shared it.  
  
The meal went on for hours. New delicacies kept appearing from the kitchen, desserts and small cakes and sugared fruits of all kinds. After a while, even the girls started refusing new helpings of meringue and settled down. The conversation bubbled like champagne, fueled by the good food and the wine and Passepartout's imaginative attempts at Spanish, which kept the girls giggling and begging him to speak in other languages, too. Verne started sketching the faces of the people around him. Doña Vicenta, plump and rosy, smiling happily at her guests, embraced by her cheerful husband. Amparo and Consuelo, dark heads together, talking. Passepartout, making faces. Rebecca, listening to something that Cosme was telling her, the eyes sparkling with laughter, the mouth bent into that half-smile of hers that could melt the ice caps. Fogg, a slight crease of worry between the eyebrows, but with that rare gentle smile of his, looking unusually relaxed.   
  
Someone brought a guitar, as more people from the cortijo, workers and servants and children, joined them for coffe or more wine, or a piece of bread and cheese. Passepartout joined some men in a strangely beautiful, melancholy song. Verne noted with interest that when the valet sang, his accent was perfect. The talk was general now. Rebecca had dared to sit down with some women and was speaking passable Spanish, much to her own delight. Fogg sat at one end of the long table, a glass of wine on his hand, listening to the guitar player and glancing from time to time at the door through which Don Fernando and Manuel had disappeared. Verne went to him.  
  
"Ah, Verne," Fogg said when he saw him. "Sit down. Do you feel tired? Would you like to retire?"  
  
"Not at all. I'd prefer to remain here, if you don't mind."  
  
Fogg poured him a glass of wine and they sat together, in silence, listening to the soft music of the guitar at the other end of the table.   
  
"So, um... Did you buy all the horses you need?" Verne asked awkwardly.  
  
"I believe I have almost all I need," Fogg replied, smiling softly. "I may take a second look, though. There's probably something I've missed."  
  
The shadows were getting longer. Fogg looked at Verne and then raised his glass.  
  
"To friendship," he said. Verne held his gaze for a moment and felt a weight leaving his shoulders.  
  
"To friendship."  
  
The glasses clinked. Both men drank, and sat back, and watched the setting sun play on Rebecca's hair; and her laughter filled the fragrant summer air.  
  
  
  
END (there is a short epilogue, coming up)  
  
Daurmith / Adela 


	10. Epilogue -- Which takes place two months...

RITMO ANDALUZ  
  
Epilogue  
_Which takes place two months after the events just described_  
  
  
  
It was one of those rare sunny days that the end of the English summer could provide on occasion. The countryside looked like something out of a fairy tale, bathed in sweet warm light, with the trees rustling gently in the soft breeze. The meadows, velvety green, were dappled with blue and yellow little flowers like droplets of sky and gold. In the thick bushes the birds tweeted gently...  
  
"Shoo!"  
  
... and flew away in a frenzy of wings and frightened chirps. They settled again like snowflakes on the branches of a young, slender willow that -  
  
"Away from there, you beasts! Shoo! Shoo!"  
  
... Oh, it's impossible, simply impossible... But it still was a nice afternoon. Sigh.  
  
"Verne, will you kindly stop that? And come back to the path!"  
  
"I'm having too much fun, Fogg!"  
  
"Well, at least don't make the poor 'Nube' turn around so quickly, you're going to make her sick!"  
  
"The truth is that she's frightened of your horse, Phileas."  
  
"Nonsense. 'Pesadilla' has been behaving much better lately."  
  
"If you call good behavior breaking her stall partitions twice, biting Old Muck's hand, and scaring every horse in the area out of their hides, then I have to agree. Why on earth did you want to keep that damned beast, anyway? She's a fiend from hell!"  
  
"I have a weak spot for dangerous females."  
  
Rebecca's mouth moved as if to repress a smile; she let a second pass and then changed the subject.  
  
"Jules seems quite comfortable on a horse these days, though."  
  
"If he doesn't drive the poor beast mad, look at him! And why is he doing that, anyway? Scaring all the birds from Shillingworth to Lincolnshire?"  
  
"Ah... Well, I'm sure he has his reasons."  
  
Fogg shook his head and then spent a busy couple of minutes regaining control of 'Pesadilla', who was trying to throw him over the nearest hill. His wife held back the nervous 'Festivo' and watched Phileas fight the beautiful animal, not without some pleasure. When focused, Phileas was as fascinating to behold as the aurora borealis.   
  
Verne trotted back to them, pleasure radiating from his face.   
  
"That took care of them," he said with wicked pleasure. "Shall we go back? I promised Passepartout I would help him with our new design of a water hose for putting out fires."  
  
"Apparently your last mission had some unexpected beneficial side effects, Rebecca. Or at least I hope they will be beneficial." Phileas said mildly, watching Verne explore all nearby bushes in search of more feathered fiends.  
  
"Chatsworth was positively glowing when he received Maberley's last reports. He almost laughed when he read them."  
  
"A shocking image," Phileas replied. "But I suppose I'm glad."  
  
"Christiansen eluded the Spanish police. But he's being watched. It's only a matter of time."  
  
"And you will be there."  
  
Rebecca gave him a quick glance. Amazing, how he could read her.  
  
"Well, yes. We are working on the details now. Maybe by autumn."  
  
"Ah." Phileas watched the clear blue sky and felt the sun warm his back and Pesadilla's glossy coat. He breathed in the sweet afternoon air and watched the charming landscape around him fondly, listening to the rustling of leaves and... well, not the singing of birds, really. And Rebecca, foreground to everything else in his life. And yes, even 'Pesadilla'. He could ride her. Not easily, not without some pain, but indeed he could ride her.  
  
"Everything I need," he muttered to himself, and rode with his wife to their home, their friends and their life.  
  
  
  
The (definitive) End  
  
Adela / Daurmith 


	11. Afterword

AUTHOR'S AFTERWORD   
(I just can't leave things like this)  
  
Well, it's over. As my wonderful beta reader, Odensdisir, said, the horses are safely on the stables at Shillingworth Magna and our heroes are relaxing and having a nice cup of tea. I have collected all my notes and exited stage, discreetly. My work here is done and I release the magic thread that has bound me to Seville and England these last weeks.  
Writing this story has been wonderful and painful at the same time. I hadn't realized, when I started, how hard it was going to be. I hadn't realized many things about writing, plot, dialogue, pacing, and characterization. There are many clumsy mistakes I wish now I hadn't written. But, warts and all, I loved writing Ritmo, living in the Villares Cortijo and listening to what the characters had to say. It was worth every second.  
Speaking of which, the faithful reader may find these little bits of interest in case they are wondering about some of the people in the story:  
  
Manuel confessed everything to his father. Thanks to Fogg, he was spared a public inquiry and detention, but not the rumors that ran wild in Seville after the rest of the Republicans were detained. Eventually, not wanting to bring shame to his family, he left Seville and went to Florida. He had a bit of a hard time there for a while, but finally he settled down quite happily, imported some horses from home to start a breeding program, married, and became a respectable man well-liked by everyone.   
  
Jules Verne finally overcame his vicious streak against birds, and was able to let them sing sweetly from the trees without feeling the need to stone them down. But he always kept a reminder of distrust for the feathered fauna, and wove that in his later stories, where you can find all manners of avifauna depicted either as emergency nourishment for daring explorers, or as fearsome threats to be valiantly faced by his characters. Read the books if you don't believe me.  
  
The body of Gonzalo Estepa was recovered from a ravine three days after his fight with Phileas Fogg. His throat had been cut. No money was found on his clothes.  
  
Pesadilla never really lost her devilish temper; but she refined her technique, managing to look pretty and mild most of the time, and then lashing about in the wildest fashion, particularly if a hunting party was taking place and Miss Finchberry-White had been invited. Rebecca often thought that Fogg quite enjoyed, and did nothing to prevent, the pandemonium that ensued.   
  
Fogg's first attempts at horse-breeding were not a success. After much cajoling, Pesadilla was convinced to mate with Dormilón and produce a foal. Fogg expected to get a horse as intelligent and fast as the mare and with the sweet character of the father. What he got, however, was a rather ugly misshapen pony, bulky, ill-tempered and quite stupid. They called him 'Count Gregory'.  
  
Although Rebecca was able to stop the complot to arm the republicans with fire-throwers, her valiant efforts only delayed the inevitable. In 1868, a full-fledged revolution sent Queen Isabel II into exile. She was succeeded by the nice, if somewhat half-boiled, Amadeo de Saboya. After him, Spain made her first experiment with a Republic. It was not a success.  
  
  
And now it's really, truly over. Everything has been said except for two very important things:  
  
Odensdisir has been my beta reader all throughout the story. She's been patient, encouraging, kind, witty, hard-working and wonderful beyond words. 'Ritmo Andaluz' wouldn't have been finished without her constant support and excellent feedback. Therefore, I dedicate this story, such as it is, to her. It's not nearly enough but it's all I have.  
  
And you, the readers: the wonderful people of the SAJV fandom. My thanks for being kind, fun, delightful and utterly awesome. I've been impressed by your creativity, your energy and your expertise. You are a great bunch of people and it's an honor to be among you.   
  
Thank you very much.  
  
Adela 


End file.
